


apostate

by ballantine



Series: noble consuls of rome [11]
Category: Ancient History RPF, Rome (TV 2005), Βίοι Παράλληλοι - Πλούταρχος | Parallel Lives - Plutarch
Genre: Brooding, Dysfunctional Governments, M/M, Riots, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26399233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/ballantine
Summary: “...he alone is the devoted husband, the philosopher in action, the model of private virtue, and the man whose actions are consistently guided neither by passion nor by self-interest but by principle. His life, as his biographer records it, is essentially a private not a public history, and indeed the resolve to form the conspiracy seems to have been the only major political decision of his career. The tragedy of the noblest Roman of them all was that he should ever have been maneuvered by his friends and his own sense of his historic role into a position of leadership.”Brutus makes another decision.
Relationships: Mark Antony/Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger
Series: noble consuls of rome [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730350
Comments: 29
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The quote in the summary is from Ian Scott-Kilvert's introduction in my late mother's old school copy of Plutarch, which I have had at my elbow almost 24/7 for months. It basically captures everything I feel about Brutus.
> 
> (this first chapter covers time between Antony leaving to “handle” riot and Agrippa's capture)
> 
> ALSO: when I was doing a spellcheck, I accidentally hit 'change' without seeing what I was changing, so if you happen to notice something really stupid, please do let me know.

Phaedrus, it is said by those who knew him, was an idealist.

But he called himself only a lover.

_Day 1_

Brutus stood at the window of the small side room off the Curia's main chamber and looked out at the street. It was unsettlingly quiet; never had he seen the Forum so empty of people. Broken furniture and carts had been left behind during the night, but as the sun rose, no one gathered to add to the mess. The locus of the mobs had shifted. He thought he should feel relieved. But it had been a very long night and his co-consul was no nearer than the people in the Forum.

A step just outside the room; he could tell it was Lucilius, reporting back. He swallowed his disappointment and turned to greet his friend.

Lucilius dragged off his helmet as he stepped through the door, the movement raking his sweat-soaked hair into a miniature plume, as if the helmet had an echo. He crossed the room to Brutus, who automatically inclined his head to listen.

He didn't know why they both fell so instinctively to discretion, but he didn't question it.

“It's as you thought,” said Lucilius, low. “Just before dawn, a legion bearing the old standard of the Macedonian fourth attacked the city gate and walls along the Esquiline hill. No one was expecting it, so they had little trouble taking the position.”

Brutus gripped his elbows. “Who is leading them? Surely Octavian has not been so bold to step out of the darkness just yet.”

“Agrippa was the name Antony gave,” said Lucilius. He said it like it was nothing to him, and as the name meant little to Brutus as well, this was some small comfort.

“You spoke to Antony?” he asked sharply.

He had sent no word back to the house after leaving at dusk the night before. In the long hours that followed, Brutus was torn between worry and an irrational anger – the latter clearly a product of Antony's obsession with a monarchy. Trust that man to insist on pledging loyalty and obedience to an unwilling sovereign, only to turn around and misbehave.

Lucilius shifted the helmet under his arm, his expression turning hesitant. “He was attempting to corral a group of Julian cultists in a square when news came from the Esquiline. Then he left the Julians to his brother and departed to call up two cohorts. We barely exchanged ten words, but he seemed fairly certain about the identity of the rebel legion's leader.”

Brutus took that in. “What were the streets like as you made your way here? Do you think the worst is over?”

He shook his head. “I think we won't know the answer to that until tonight.”

“You're likely right.” Brutus turned back to the window, looking pessimistically again at the mess in the Forum. “These things seem to feed on the darkness. Have you gotten any sleep?” he asked suddenly, glancing over and flicking his eyes critically over his figure, looking for any tell-tale tremor of exhaustion.

Lucilius's face creased into a faint expression of stubborn denial. He replied pointedly, “Have you?” And, looking away: eye darting to the same scene Brutus had been studying for the past hour, he said, “I should head over to the Esquiline.”

Brutus hated to agree. He sighed and said only, “Be safe; report back. And if you see Antony again, tell him the same.”

Lucilius paused in putting his helmet back on. “Do I have to say the _be safe_ part? Only, it would feel – impertinent.” And intimate, his imploring eyes added, as if Brutus had asked him to pass along tender words of love and devotion. (Lucilius would die a thousand times for Brutus, of course, but some asks were too much.)

Brutus looked at him, expressionless. After a few seconds, Lucilius nodded an acknowledgment of his own chagrin. He replaced his helmet and saluted.

He was gone again before either man could realize it was the first time he had ever done such a thing, or wonder that it had felt perfectly natural.  
  


* * *

  
“I've been thinking,” he said to his mother that night, upon finding her still up in her sitting room next to a brazier: “perhaps you should leave the city.”

She looked over at him silently.

They were alike enough in their habits, and he hadn't questioned that she would still be awake, especially with the city in its current state. So although he knew what her look meant, he pushed on.

“I believe Tertia has already quit for their house in Capua; you could go stay with her until Cassius or I send word that it's safe for you both to return.”

The dark room was a stage for the play of light from the brazier, and it served to soften and harden her features in flickering turns. It was impossible to predict which face would look at him, second to second, though he thought he should have stopped looking for the soft long ago.

She looked away, out a window, and said:

“Before you were born – before I married your father, even – I used to go with your uncle to visit Sulla. He liked Cato, for some reason. Others thought the invitations were just to honor my step-father, but I knew differently. I think... there was something about how nakedly Marcus hated him. It intrigued the man.”

“Uncle was honest in all matters,” said Brutus. “It surprises me not at all to hear he was no different in his youth.”

As usual, she continued as if he hadn't spoken.

“That house was like a little factory. Men would go in and blood and screams would issue out – quite audible on the street. And then, after a while, about once a day... a parade, a neat line of heads, each one carried by a slave to put on display with the others.” She paused. “They were very efficient about it.”

He'd been hearing of the proscriptions all his life. He had no patience for such reminiscing just then. “Mother, if your point is that you have witnessed trouble before, rest assured. I recall. I am not doubting your bravery. I am only suggesting—”

“I will not leave the city,” she said, as if that settled the matter. And it did, because she was Servilia. She lifted a hand from the depths of her shawl and gestured to a shelf across the room; a blade rested there, gleaming once it had the eye upon it. “Eleni has had the dagger sharpened. I shall take care of myself when the time comes. If it comes.”

He was too tired to argue. “Very well.” He turned to go, but her next words made him pause.

“Is it true, what is said? Did that man offer you a crown?”

For once, he could not read her tone – but he also found he did not want to. Whatever came next, he knew he would have to act on his own. He was weary of dealing with multi-authored actions. They all lately seemed to end the same, anyway: with him solely responsible.

“I don't understand this formulation people have been using,” he said, not looking at her. “This – _offering_ they speak of. As if such a thing was his to give without the consent of the people.”

“You're side-stepping the question,” she observed.

He sighed and passed a hand over his eyes. “Not really. I just don't think the answer is relevant anymore. We're past the point where any one man's desires or plans matter.”

He hazarded a glance back and found her studying him.

“I cannot decide,” she said at last, “if that sort of logic belongs to a king – or a slave.”

He breathed on that remark for but a second before quitting the room. He did not, as a rule, argue with his mother.

But as they were often wont to do, her words worked their way past the surface of his thoughts and dug deep through all the hours of the night. The problem was not that he agreed or disagreed with her, but that something inside him recognized a fallacy in her construction: that there might be no difference between a king and slave, or at least not one he would recognize as such.  
  


* * *

  
Phaedrus thought an ideal state would be one made up entirely of pairs of lovers: what a fine population it would make! For no other organization would be so eager to avoid dishonor, or seek out glory, than they; in battle, such an army might conquer the whole world.

 _After all_ , Phaedrus is said to have declared, _a lover would sooner be seen by anyone deserting his post or throwing away his weapons, rather than by his love. He would choose to die many times over instead. And as for abandoning the boy, or giving up trying to save him if he is in danger – no one is such a coward as not to be inspired with courage by Eros, making him equal of the naturally brave man._

Can I be brave, Brutus asks himself that second night. Can I be as brave as him?

_Day 2_

“They've advanced. Fire broke out in the Suburra,” said Lucilius. His face was smudged with ash everywhere his helmet had not rested, almost giving him the appearance of a face-painted Briton. “Some of the men claim they saw Agrippa's legion start it, but you know how the buildings are stacked in that neighborhood – it could just as easily have been an accident. Antony ordered houses to be pulled down – we took down ten before before the fire was contained.”

“The Saburra,” said Brutus, checking.

“Yes.”

“So the smoke I see from the southwest would be...?”

Lucilius lunged for the window to get a look. Up close, he smelled powerfully of smoke and sweat. Rather than flinching away, it made Brutus keenly self-conscious of his own impeccably clean toga. What a useless person he turned out to be, he thought.

“Oh,” said Lucilius. And then, “Fuck.”

“Antony left a cohort,” said Brutus quickly, before his friend could suggest heading over himself. It never occurred to Lucilius to rest or stand aside, not when he thought he could help. “I'll send a century to assess and assist with fire containment. But – what of Agrippa and his men? Have they been dealt with?”

Lucilius, arrested halfway to putting his helmet back on, grimaced. “They've holed up in a row of tenements and throw down artillery and the contents of chamber pots. Going inside is like trying to navigate a rabbit warren lined with teeth.”

“So what's the plan? Wait them out?”

“Antony wants to pull down the houses around the occupied sections to create a break and then set fire to the whole lot.”

Brutus stared. “And the occupants of the tenements?”

“...Anyone still inside is to be considered an ally to Agrippa and treated accordingly.” He shifted on his feet and admitted, “It sounded more reasonable on the street, whilst being pelted with shot and cack from above.”

Brutus had nothing to say to that, so he merely sighed, “Be safe, report back. And if—”

“I'll tell him,” said Lucilius. He put his helmet back on, saluted, and was gone.  
  


* * *

  
Brutus's day did not involve wholesale slaughter or arson or saving anyone from either of those things; his day consisted of a series of long meetings with people who could not comprehend the notion of joint action, or for whom the idea that they were in anyway responsible for the fate of the city was tantamount to demagoguery.

“Do you hear yourself?” said Quintus Ligarius to Spinther. “Look who you are talking to. If Marcus Brutus can be accused of demagoguery, we might as well close up shop right now and walk away. Let the city burn to the ground.”

“The city is already burning to the ground,” said Brutus. “The question before us is whether we continue to let it.”

The group was gathered in Cassius's garden. Brutus was the only man not on a couch; every time he sat down or reclined in any fashion, he found he began to feel ill. So he stood, or paced, and ignored the displeased looks Cassius sent his way. The other man thought him self-important for his refusal to sit.

Cicero, sitting folded up tighter than a clam, said, “Residents of the affected neighborhoods will deal with the fires. But so long as we have lunatics fighting in the streets, the fires will keep being set.”

 _I'll call off mine if you call off yours,_ thought Brutus. Aloud, he said, “Have you had word from the boy?”

“Octavian has no connection to the invading force,” he said stiffly.

Brutus straightened his shoulders restlessly. He breathed in and out and marshaled his patience. “Except, of course, the men were a Caesarian legion, and they're being led by an old classmate of his.”

“ _Old_ classmate,” said Cassius to the side, “as if they aren't both barely out of the _toga virilis_.”

“He has not proclaimed an alliance,” was Cicero's rebuttal. And then, the relevant part: “You can prove nothing.”

“Be that as it may, surely the boy can – reason with this Agrippa. Because of their past connection. Unless he is unwilling, for some reason?”

“Surely you are not asking that I send Octavian out into the middle of a violent street brawl. He is a valuable member of his community.”

“Cack-kicking little upstart, is what he is,” muttered Plancus. It was the first he had spoken since arriving; he had otherwise been preoccupied with the drinks and food Cassius's slaves had spread lavishly before the group.

As if they'd all gathered for a late lunch, thought Brutus bitterly, watching the man apply himself to the wine. “If we cannot get the rebel legions to lay down their arms, the other option is to crush them. Ideally, as quickly as possible,” he said. “I already have my forces out there – the men around this table must offer soldiers to assist us in restoring peace to the streets.”

He looked around, noting who looked back and who looked away.

“I have already sent men to the Aventine,” said Lepidus.

“You are, as ever, a loyal and valuable ally,” said Brutus. He looked around again. “Plancus?”

“Hm? Oh, yes, of course.” He waved the hand that wasn't holding a goose leg. “I can send along some men. Is Antony still hacking them to pieces over on the Esquiline?”

“The Carinae, last I heard,” said Brutus tersely.

Cicero seemed mesmerized by the combination of words and the grease shining upon Plancus's lips. He looked almost sick; he was the only other man who hadn't eaten any of Cassius's offerings.

“And Cicero?” he said, calling his attention. It took a few seconds. “Have you any arms or soldiers to offer the effort?”

The man smiled thinly and wrapped his toga more tightly about his arms, as if he found the garden chilly. “It seems soldiers are the only currency that matters in Rome these days. And if this is indeed the case – then I'm afraid you must consider me a pauper.”

Brutus glanced at the sky, estimating the hour. He had other meetings to attend. He said, adjusting his toga in preparation for departure, “Take heart, Cicero. If the flames of another civil war are to engulf Rome, your services may yet be needed to spark it.”

Plancus stopped chewing; Lepidus and Spinther knit their brows. Cassius looked away and shook his head slightly.

“You cannot possibly think to blame _me_ for what's happening out there,” said Cicero. Brutus saw he was somehow both deeply offended but, underneath, also a little pleased.

“A better question,” he said flatly, “is who among us I don't blame.”

He nodded to them all and took his leave of the group.  
  


* * *

  
Phaedrus said, and Brutus has always felt the truth of it keenly: _he does not understand his own condition and cannot explain it; like one who has caught a disease of the eyes from another, he can give no reason for it._

Did he see himself in Antony as in a mirror – could he possibly have spent his life not conscious of it?

 _And in his lover's presence,_ Phaedrus assured, _like him he ceases from his pain, and in his absence, like him he is filled with yearning such as he inspires._

But did love's image, requited love – did it truly dwell within Brutus?

_Day 3_

“...and then their reinforcements came over the Viminal – their numbers aren't great, but we weren't expecting it. With the wreckage, it was a mess. I think we lost a lot of men.”

Lucilius had not bothered to take his helmet off. He wavered on his feet, and though he looked straight at Brutus as he gave his report, his reddened eyes seemed incapable of focusing fully.

“Have you slept?” asked Brutus; the words came out disjointed, in pieces, like someone had taken a grindstone to his vocal cords.

A trace of a smile plucked at his friend's lips. “Have you?”

But he was ready for him. “A few hours, yes. Last night. Give me your helmet and blade?”

Lucilius handed them over instantly, without questioning why he wished to hold them. He thus looked almost comically surprised when Brutus, upon handing the articles off to a slave, planted both hands on his chest and shoved him down on the nearest couch.

“Sleep,” said Brutus. “Consider it a consular command.”

“But, Brutus,” he said, imploring, “you don't understand – the fighting, it's still going on. I need to get—”

“I don't _understand_?” he said, drawing himself up. As if he needed the reminder of his current distance from the action.

At his cold tone, Lucilius fell silent. He looked crumpled and a little confused, perched there unsteadily on the couch. Brutus was forced to revise his strategy immediately; Lucilius was not the one he wanted to pick a fight with.

“I'm sorry, Lucilius,” he said, lowering himself to the couch beside his. He drew his hands through his hair and shook his head at the floor. “I do not mean to snap.”

“Please don't apologize,” he said. And when Brutus grimaced, he added, “Only, I'm having a hard time following our conversation, and I'd rather you save up such moments for when I can remember them.”

He met his eyes, and Lucilius smiled a little crookedly at him. A peculiar haze had come over his expression. He was going to pass out.

Brutus sighed and made himself smile back. “Sleep, friend,” he said softly, and pressed two fingers against his chest until the man tipped backwards.

He was out before his head hit the couch. Brutus watched him for several minutes, wondering if Antony was in a similar state, or if he'd taken naps in the shadow of demolished tenements between bouts of fighting.  
  


* * *

  
In the afternoon, Tribune Lucius Caesetius Flavus came to see Brutus in his study. The tribunate had been quiet for months, and so this was a most welcome meeting – or, it was, until after the pleasantries had been exchanged. Then the man explained he and his colleagues were considering granting Brutus emergency powers.

Brutus's hands flattened atop his desk, but only to stop himself from balling them into fists. “Emergency powers,” he said, very evenly.

“Oh, you know – supreme _imperium_ , legal immunity for all actions taken during term, that sort of thing.” Flavus crossed his legs and flapped a hand. “Just to get the city back on stable ground, you understand. Exact details are to be worked out in a special meeting of the Assembly tomorrow.”

He chose his words carefully. “That sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship.”

“Does it?”

“The Senate abolished the dictatorship,” said Brutus, emphatic. “In Aprilis.”

Flavus shrugged. “And the Assembly has considered the matter carefully and respectfully disagrees.”

There followed a long pause as Brutus stared at him.

Flavus drummed his fingers on the edge of his couch. He was a stolid man: sturdily built and hard in his own way – not easily intimidated. After almost a full minute of mounting tension on Brutus's side, he seemed to realize the news was not going over well, and he offered, nonplussed, “We don't have to call it a dictatorship?”

Brutus thought it best to remove his hands from view entirely. He glanced down at his desk, thought briefly of—

He looked away from his desk.

He cleared his throat.

“You'll understand if I find this news a bit much, especially coming from one such as yourself – how could the other tribunes agree to this? I notice Marullus is not here with you.”

Tribunes Flavus and Marullus were restored to their offices after the Ides, having previously been stripped of their powers for daring to arrest citizens who called out _Rex_ when Caesar moved through the streets. (Not to mention the whole Diadem Incident, which Brutus as a rule doesn't, because Antony is always unbearable afterwards).

“They not only agree,” said the tribune, spreading his hands, “they are adamant.”

He pressed on, a little desperate. “But are you not concerned about the risks? Who's to say I will not turn into another Caesar? I might abuse my powers or—”

Flavus laughed in his face.

Brutus shut his mouth. After a moment of enduring the chortling, he tipped his chin up and narrowed his eyes.

Flavus shook his head and even mimed wiping a tear from his eye. “Consul Brutus, I'm sorry. I mean no disrespect. But there is not a soul in Rome who doesn't know you hate the job. It's why you're perfect for it.”

He gritted his teeth. He put his hands back on his desk, avoiding slapping the surface by a last second spasm of tendons. “The tribunate has been quiet all year, and now – _this_. Is there no one in this government who wants to do their fucking job?”

“Be reasonable,” was the unbothered reply. “How do you think the Optimates would react to us asserting our powers to foist redistributive policies upon their wealthiest members?”

“If the Assembly so wishes it, that is your _function_. We'd work it out somehow, come to a compromise.”

Flavus shrugged. “Well. The Senate's been a bit mad for assassination as of late, and none of us fancy ending up shivved in the street, do we. You try compromising with a blade to the throat some time, hm?”

But you'll nominate me for target practice, thought Brutus.

He stared down at his desk. This time he didn't try to stop the memories: the last moment of freedom he might have known in this room. But rather than making him feel better, he became obscurely depressed: like an old man who couldn't get it up anymore remembering all the good kicks he'd had when he was young and spry.

“Cheer up,” said Flavus, standing to leave. He rapped his knuckles on the desk. “Sulla retired from the Dictatorship, and you can too.”

“The man lasted a year and then shat himself to death,” said Brutus.

The tribune paused at the door and said, “I wish you better luck.”  
  


* * *

  
He didn't share the news with anyone – not his mother at dinner, or by sending a messenger around to Cassius. He thought for a few frantic seconds about shaking Lucilius awake, but one peek into the room where he lay snoring quashed the selfish impulse.

Of course, the person he wanted to tell most was Antony, but he might as well have been in Gaul for all the word he'd sent from across the city. And his reaction would not help Brutus a bit, not one bit; he would either rejoice – for nomination to a dictatorship might easily be a politic first stage in a transition to a monarchy – or he'd laugh, like Flavus had laughed. Brutus could not bear the thought of either reaction.

Besides, Antony thought Brutus had already made his choice. It was only this knowledge that had kept Antony off Cicero; that kept him moving as they left the Senate and returned to Brutus's house that night; that made him grip a wine cup rather than smash his fist into a wall.

As Brutus sat in his study alone, sending away the slave who would have lit his brazier and warmed the space, he thought: in his own fashion, Antony had sacrificed something. And it was now up to him to find a way to be worthy of it.

There were so many things Brutus wished to say to him: words he had yet to find the breath for, or the wherewithal to put down in ink. None of them to do with the city or consulship, and some none-too-gracious, even.

Look at all you have passed through, he would say. Look what you have endured. Your life could end today and I believe you would had lived a great one. If I could give my memories voices, they would say more, they would speak it better.

But rare is the man who was as alive in the present as he was in his own past; Brutus thought he himself was not. But he wanted to be. Was it something he could simply choose?  
  


* * *

  
He was not unfamiliar with in-laws taking liberties with his house – Cassius and Lepidus both came and went as they pleased, it often seemed – but a new standard of low was set when Lucius Antonius came banging into his atrium with a bloodied and unconscious boy thrown over his burly shoulder.

He grunted and heaved the body off, tossing him to the floor like a dock worker might a sack of grain. Fulvia, at his side with a naked blade in hand, very nearly looked like she might spit on the boy once he was down.

Brutus paused at the end of the corridor and observed that the unfamiliar figure was bound and gagged. His brow wrinkled.

“I had a cat once that used to bring dead mice and rats to my room and leave them on top of my desk,” he said, stepping closer to inspect the captive. “Is this Antony's idea of a gift?”

“Antony is missing,” snapped Fulvia. “Possibly dead.”

“We have no reason to believe that,” said Lucius, face down-turned.

Brutus looked at them, forgetting all about the boy. He imagined he could feel the cold from outside creeping through the door, though it had closed firmly behind them.

“Missing,” he repeated, a little blank. “What happened?”

Fulvia nudged the unconscious body with her boot. “We finally drove this one and Octavian from their little hidey-hole. They attempted to run for it.”

“Retreat,” said Lucius quietly. “It's called a retreat.”

“They were running for their lives,” she said. “Antony broke away from his formation and pursued them into an insula. It was crowded – families from the burned tenements fled there yesterday. Something set the crowd off, and by the time we could get in, Antony and Octavian were gone and _he_ was lying on the ground.”

Brutus's jaw ached with frustration and impatience and all the unknowns suddenly bearing down upon his life. “And who is _he_? Why have you dragged him all the way across the city instead of looking for Antony?”

She looked at him as if he was a particularly slow animal. She pointed at the boy's slack face with her gladius. “This is Agrippa, the traitor legions' leader.”

Brutus looked at her with disbelief and then down at the boy.

His forehead had been cut just below where a helmet would rest, and the blood had made a mess of his face. But it was clear that he was young; his battle stubble was light and uneven, and his skin was free of lines or weathering. Brutus had known Agrippa was young – to be a classmate of Octavian's, of course he would have to be. But no one who had seen Octavian in action came away thinking him _young_ , only oddly not-yet-old.

“And you think, what – that he may know where Antony is?” he asked, distantly marveling that he was able to speak the question without any emotion. “Why?”

“He may know where Octavian would go. If Antony still pursued him – it's somewhere to start, anyway.” Fulvia looked down at the captive. “I say, we cut it out of him. Inch by inch.”

“No,” Brutus heard himself say. “I'll handle it.”

“ _You_?” Her eyes swung up and held only outrageous scorn as they regarded him. “And what will you do, offer him refreshments, a soft cushion – maybe ask him nicely?”

Brutus ignored the impudent woman and looked at Antony's brother. Since entering his house, Lucius had held himself in reserve.

“Do you doubt my motivation,” he asked him. “Or perhaps my commitment?”

A long moment passed over the three. Brutus did not physically fret or try to puff himself up to appear more than he was. Indeed, he lay his insides open for inspection – but quietly, like one displays the beloved dead before a funeral. For was this not what it felt like to love Antony, half the time: like one perpetually on the edge of a painful loss, always anticipating the day mourning would descend and stay.

“No, I do not,” said Lucius at last.

“Lucius—” began Fulvia, but her husband caught her hand without needing to look for it, and she bit the words back. Her expression twisted and she looked away.

“We'll let you question the boy,” he said to Brutus. His eyes narrowed in thought, and his next words sounded almost bemused. “I think – I think it may be your right.”

And what else was it Phaedrus had said?

_The unruly horse of the beloved says nothing, but teeming with passion and confused emotions he embraces and kisses his lover, caressing him as his best friend; and when they lie together, he would not refuse his lover any favor, if he asked it; but the other horse and the charioteer oppose all this with modesty and reason._

Brutus was ready to dispense with modesty and reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first italicized line from Phaedrus is adapted from Tom Griffith's translation of Plato's Symposium. Reading this book made me feel insane. The other Phaedrus quotes are from Howard N. Fowler's translation of Plato's Phaedrus, available on the Tufts' Perseus site.


	2. Chapter 2

“I don't care about you at all,” said Brutus, and he burned with how true it was; he could set fire to his own house with how true it was. “I want to know where Consul Antony is. If you do not tell me – if he does not appear before this night ends – I will have you stripped and sewn into the belly of a horse and left out under the sun until the maggots eat you alive.”

**_Hour I (First Watch)_ **

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking fucker fucking fucked it up. _Fuck!_ ”

Lucilius, blinking the sleep from his eyes, followed the sound of cursing down the corridor to the atrium, where he found his old friend, clutching his hair and directing hateful invective at his own feet.

Brutus, turning, caught sight of him and straightened abruptly. “Oh, Lucilius. I'm sorry to have woken you.”

“It's all right, I slept too long as it is – but what's the matter? What happened?”

He didn't say anything for a long moment. Then, ducking his head, he said tightly, “I'm afraid I screwed up an interrogation.”

Jupiter's stone, how long had he slept? Lucilius darted a wide-eyed glance at the nearest window, but the darkness outside gave no hint.

“Ah,” he said, as if it was perfectly ordinary to hear Brutus had been engaged in such activities. He stifled a yawn and tried to look sympathetic. “So the fellow's dead? It happens.”

His expression twisted. “What? No.” He gestured down the corridor. “He's inside a spare room, supping on bread and olive oil.”

Lucilius hesitated. He thought carefully about how to approach the matter delicately. “Brutus, it does your heart credit, but I think you may have gotten confused about how torture works.”

“I'm not going to _torture_ him,” cried Brutus. “I want to find out what he knows, not get – revenge, or whatever.” He paused. “Not yet, anyway.”

He still did not understand. “But – you said, interrogation?”

Brutus's tone adopted a familiar cadence, the one he used whenever he endeavored, as he habitually did, to explain a bit of philosophy to Lucilius. “Surely you've noticed that when a man is being tortured, he'll say anything to make it stop? I want Antony found. I won't have some valuable piece of information lost in a deluge of wearisome pleading.” And, while Lucilius attempted to take in the news that the other consul was apparently missing, Brutus frowned in concentration. He said, “What I need – what I had intended to do – is build a rapport with the man, get him to relax his guard. Then maybe he'll let something slip, or decide to help of his own accord.”

It was the most bizarre strategy Lucilius had ever heard. “So you're trying to – what, _sweet talk_ him?” He bit his lip. “Well, it's no wonder that didn't go over well. You're no better at that than you are at torture.”

“You're right,” admitted Brutus, tapping his elbows. “He barely softened at all, and then I had to go ruin it by threatening him. So – will you help me?” he asked suddenly. “Will you go in and talk to him?”

Lucilius sobered and came to attention. He said, “Tell me what to do, and I will do it, of course. It's only – Brutus, you know I've not much talent for deception.”

Brutus shook his head. “I don't need you to deceive him. Just be yourself – Lucilius, be a _friend_.”

**_Hour II (First Watch)_ **

“Look, I'll come right out with it,” said Lucilius, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and meeting the boy's eyes frankly. “Trust me, it'll be quicker – Consul Brutus doesn't want to torture you.”

“Alright,” said Agrippa uncertainly.

He nodded, as if he'd said something else. “I know – he's got a bit of a temper. He says, uh, sorry, by the way – or, he didn't, actually, but I know he feels sorry. See, generally he prefers to handle things with more, um, diplomacy?”

“Right,” said Agrippa.

“You must know how it is, when a friend who's a little too in his own head finally makes a mistake – he acts like his whole life is over.”

“Octavian doesn't really make mistakes,” said Agrippa. And then, seeming to realize how obnoxious that sounded, he added quickly, “Not that I can tell, anyway. My gifts are reserved for war. Many of his movements are opaque to me.”

“Tell me about it,” said Lucilius. “After Brutus became consul, his letters were full of commission of this, committee of that. Strange machinations and considerations. Most of it went over my head. But that's all right, isn't it? It's good to know there are people out there who handle that sort of thing.”

The boy nodded, a little unwilling, but said nothing. His brow was creased a little, like he was trying to figure out in what new game he had found himself a contender.

Lucilius continued, “Look, I expect Brutus is hoping to negotiate with Octavian over your release, but that's just speculation on my part. So try not to hold it against me if it's something different, hey?” And he smiled.

Agrippa didn't quite smile back, but after searching the other man's eyes for a long moment, something in his shoulders eased away and left the room.

Lucilius saw this and felt a little more surefooted. Agrippa was a soldier. He was from a family of no repute. He thought they might understand one another.  
  


* * *

  
“Dominus?”

“Eros.” Brutus dropped the scroll in his hand and stood. “Come inside – shut the door.” He rounded his desk and leaned against it, folding his arms.

The slave did as he was bid and came to stand before him, eyes respectfully cast to the floor. Brutus studied him.

Eros had been with Antony for as long as Brutus had known him. Always in the background but always present, like a shadow. Unmoved in the face of his rages and deeply affected by his troubles. Brutus wondered if the slave loved Antony; if a slave was capable of forming any true attachment after a lifetime of being bound to someone, or if he could only experience emotions secondhand, like how a wrist aches when the hand it is attached to is injured.

None of these thoughts made it into his voice when he asked, “You've had many interactions with Caesar's retinue over the years, correct?”

His reply came promptly but without inflection and was impossible to read. “The two households worked with one another while on campaigns, yes, Dominus.”

Brutus's mouth twitched a little at the diplomatic answer; often Antony's household consisted of little more than himself and Eros. A drifting island of two.

He said, “So you familiar with Posca, Caesar's man.”

“Yes, Dominus.” The slave's expression did not change. He was so reserved with all but his master.

Brutus sighed, a little impatiently. “Well – did you get along? Do you think he would listen to you?”

Finally, a hint of emotion: confusion. But still silence.

“Please speak frankly,” said Brutus. “Antony needs my help, and I have neither the time nor patience to spare distilling the truth from slavish manners.”

“He's a wily old goat,” Eros said quickly, eyes still trained on the floor. “Thinks he's better than everyone, never listens – not to anybody but Caesar. And sometimes not even him.” He raised his head and affected an uncaring tone. “He never thought much of Dominus or, by extension, me. And he didn't bother to hide it.”

So much for taking advantage of the slaves' relationship. Brutus should have remembered: hierarchy remakes itself in all places. He imagined one could go to the most desolate hole-in-the-ground mine deep in the Nubian desert and find one slave demanding another give him the dried locusts from his barley gruel.

Still. He could think of no other avenue of approach.

“I need you to go the house of Atia of the Julii. Find Posca and convince him to come here. Discreetly.” He twisted around and reached for the folded parchment he'd prepared earlier. “If he shows any reluctance, give him this.”

Eros accepted the note and glanced at it. His eyes came up, curious. “No seal? How is he to believe it is from a consul of Rome?”

Brutus did not bother to explain that he did not seal the note in case the messenger was killed in transit. The streets were dangerous and a consular seal was as like to provoke rather than pacify any assailants. His plan only worked if his intentions went undetected.

And even if the note's contents could be doubted, Brutus was sure his writing would be more than enough proof. Posca had been Caesar's secretary for many years; for every piece of correspondence between Brutus and Caesar, Posca had been the invisible third hand. He would know Brutus's words, his style of writing.

“He'll believe it,” he said. “Go, quickly.”

**_Hour V (Second Watch)_ **

Cassius stepped into Brutus's study and observed how his presence initiated a sudden silence in the room; how the man waved off his slave, who had been giving some sort of report. He waited for the slave to leave the room, and then he looked at Cassius and said:

“If you have come to assassinate the new Dictator of Rome, Cassius, I only ask that you make it quick.”

Something in him loosened at the obvious displeasure in Brutus's voice. He stepped forward and said lightly, “Marullus told me they weren't going to give you the title of Dictator, actually. You're to remain consul, but with the unspoken provisional appellation of Dictator.”

Brutus's expression did not change. “And the difference between those two things?”

“One is harder to fit on a bust?” Cassius smiled to show the man the humor in the situation. Often Brutus had to be given permission to relax. He was a man of such deep anxieties; left unguided, he fell to brooding and melancholy, and allowed too many opportunities to pass by ungrasped.

But Brutus did not rally at his smile, and after a few seconds Cassius let it fade into thoughtfulness. He sat in the chair in front of the desk and folded his hands in his lap.

“What was your slave telling you just now?” he asked. “I can't help but notice how grave you seem.”

Once, Brutus would not have hesitated before sharing any news. Cassius regretted, not for the first time, his rashness with the lions back in Aprilis. Brutus took everything so personally. Nothing happened in Rome that did not somehow tie to him.

“We have no current accounting of Octavian's movements,” said Brutus eventually, dark eyes flicking over him.

“Perhaps Antony should follow the fires,” suggested Cassius, thinking if the consul was to be caught in one, it would be no great loss. Politically neat and clean.

Brutus made a noncommittal sound. He fiddle with a stylus for a moment and then said abruptly, “I have Agrippa.”

“Agrippa? The rebel general? _Alive_?” And when Brutus nodded, he said, perplexed, “Why?”

Cassius should like to take every one of these swaggering soldiers and put them to death. He thought if they could do such a thing once, and do it big, it might teach the next generation of men a lesson: never try to elevate yourself above your peers.

“I think he might be useful.” Brutus's jaw shifted. “I don't know – I don't want to act hastily.”

“If there is one thing you cannot be accused of, it's acting hastily,” said Cassius, thinking of how long it had taken to convince the man of the necessity of killing Caesar. “I am surprised you got Antony to go along with this plan. Surely _he_ is for killing the boy, getting it over with and neutralizing the threat. Octavian alone surely has no great mind for war.”

He felt a bit like a truffle hog, at times. He sensed something was hidden from him and could not help but probe around, feeling out the deceptive surface for some hint of what lay beneath. He had known Brutus for a very long time, and he could tell when he was concealing something.

“Antony has agreed to go along with my reasoning for the time being,” said Brutus. He met Cassius eyes squarely.

Cassius's lips lifted at the corners. “And what does he think of your new title?”

“My unspoken provisional appellation of Dictator? We have not had a chance to speak on it, what with the city being on fire and all. Antony's priorities are in order.”

He ignored the implicit chiding. “But do you get any sense of jealousy from him – or do you suppose this is what he wanted from the beginning?”

“Why did you come here, Cassius?” asked Brutus, a trace of tension working its way to the surface.

He spread his hands. “As you say, the city is on fire. What kind of brother would I be, if I did not check in with you and offer any assistance I can?”

“You are offering your assistance?”

“Of course,” he said. “What else?”

Brutus held aloof for a few seconds longer, but at last he caved. His hands came up and pushed at his hair, and he said with a sigh, “Would you be willing to go to Cicero? He might tell you where Octavian is, or at least offer to take a message to him. I cannot do it, as they both believe me tied to Antony.”

“And Antony wants to kill them both,” summarized Cassius. He was pleased to see there was limits to the man's utility in Brutus's eyes.

“Quite,” said Brutus.

**_Hour VI (Second Watch)_ **

The moon shone down through passing clouds and smoke and tangling tree branches upon two figures shuffling through the dark. One was helping the other. Neither were moving particularly fast; they were not the athletic type.

“I don't think he's following us anymore.”

“No.”

“Perhaps we killed him.”

“Perhaps.”

Maecenas took this as permission to stop walking. Keeping a steady hold of the arm slung over his shoulders, he straightened his back with a deeply-felt grimace and looked around the grove.

In the dark, the trees felt unfriendly, their height and reach imbued with something that felt old and deeply alien. Gods, he hated the outdoors. When they were in charge, he was going to lobby to have the sacred grove knocked down and replaced with a theater or something useful.

“I don't think we should've come this way,” he said.

“Are you spooked, Maecenas?” asked Octavian. He sounded less amused than tired.

Maecenas hitched the other man up against him; he kept sagging, like the very ground was coaxing him to lie down and stay there. “Well, you know how it is,” he said, aiming for conversational because the only other option was unnerved, “can't walk through a sacred grove at night without thinking of Gaius Gracchus. Hounded beneath the trees until he could barely walk another step. Killing himself to avoid a ghastly butchering.”

“I don't think you have to worry about that. You don't have the constitution to take your own life. Here,” said Octavian, gesturing weakly with a flick of fingers on his good arm. “Let's rest here, on this rock.”

Maecenas gratefully lowered Octavian and then slumped on the ground below him, back to the hard rock. He didn't groan, but only because he felt the trees might swallow the sound. They felt hungry for it, almost.

“It's not that I lack the constitution for suicide,” he said, continuing the conversation mostly to distract himself. “It's only, I am an eternal optimist. So long as I'm alive, there's always a chance things might improve.”

“Improvement does not come on its own, though. It has to be goaded and – and _pushed._ ” Octavian let out a low noise of pain and breathed raggedly as he set his bad arm against his ribs.

“People have to be pushed, you mean.” Maecenas paused and reflected, “I really hope he's dead.”

It had taken both of them to push the blade in. Flesh did not give way so easily as gladiators made it seem in the arena. Flesh wanted to live, to be whole.

“Matters will be substantially more simple if he is,” agreed Octavian. “But we can't do anything about it one way or another right now.”

“So what _are_ we doing? Why come this way?”

“We must seek a safe haven until Agrippa can get to us.”

This was, of course, all Agrippa's fault, so that made sense.

Maecenas did not know what he was doing here – how matters came to this. One day he was writing speeches for his school friend to give to the gullible masses and getting his cock sucked by a new mouth every night – and then suddenly armor was being thrown at him by the most butch plebeian in the whole of the Mediterranean.

Maecenas was a poet, not a soldier. Some part of his brain would not stop trying to compose words to describe how absurd all this was; he feared it would not stop until he was dead. He was going to die trying to think of a word that rhymed with _gladius_ or maybe _decapitation_.

He put his head back and stared at the scattering of stars visible through the trees and wispy clouds. He said, “Please tell me we're not staying here.”

“No,” said Octavian. “You're not, anyway.”

He twisted around and blinked up at the other man. “You want me to _leave_ you?” It seemed out of character, to say the least.

Octavian shook his head. In the dark, his expression was hard to make out, but he could guess what it was; same as it always was – closely contained. “You are to go to the House of the Vestals. It's only a few minutes away, I'll be fine until you can come back.”

He was a little aghast. “That's your plan? Hide out with the Virgins? Couldn't we have found a discreet brothel instead?”

“Maecenas.”

“Fine, fine, I hear you. House of the Vestals. Any particular message I should give them, or just the standard plea for political asylum?”

“The head priestess will know why you're there. We have – an arrangement. Previously agreed upon.”

“Of course you have.” He glanced up again and frowned. Octavian was just a silhouette against the grove's canopy and sky. A silhouette that was wavering. “Are you going to be alright, left here alone? I'm not one to judge, but I think you've lost a lot of blood.”

Antony had cut deep. It was a miracle his arm was still attached.

“You... might tell the priestess to send for a doctor.”

“That's a given.”

“Maecenas?”

“Mm?”

“Go now?”

“Oh,” he said, startling. “Right.” He pushed back to his feet and looked around, squinting. “I can't see a fucking thing with all these trees. Which way to the House of the Vestals?”

Octavian didn't sigh or say anything, merely raised his good arm and pointed. The fractured moonlight falling up on his pale form made him into an unpainted statute, a ruin from ancient times. If Maecenas was to turn away now and never come back, maybe he'd be stuck like this, indicating a lost path forward into a future no one else could see.

Without Octavian to show the way, perhaps it did not even exist.

Maecenas was exhausted, but he'd chosen months ago to throw his lot in with Octavian. It was not a choice he was currently in a position to reevaluate. So he slipped off into the darkness and hoped only he would not turn his ankle on a stone.

**_Hour VII (Third Watch)_ **

“...so, you see,” said Lucilius, “I didn't even know the man. Stories from Brutus. It was, I dunno – well above my station, I guess.”

“I think it is safe to say that even those of us who served under him didn't know Caesar,” said Agrippa, shifting in his seat. “Octavian has a bit of that in him. Hard to know what he's thinking sometimes. You just have to trust he knows what he's doing.”

Lucilius topped off both cups of wine. “The two of you rode back in Caesar's carriage last year, though, didn't you? All the way from the battlefield at Munda?”

Agrippa paused, face creasing in bemusement. “Is that – common knowledge?”

He shrugged easily. “People gossip about the strangest things. I imagine they read into it about as eagerly as they tracked his bedmates – who's in favor, who's not. All rot, if you ask me. But of course I don't think very deeply about who I share a carriage or bed with.”

Agrippa considered his cup of wine. He had been sipping it slowly, not intending to drink enough to be affected. His instincts told him this man could be trusted, but Octavian has told him many a time that he should not trust his instincts when not on a battlefield.

“It's true,” he said. “Octavian and I sat with Caesar until we passed into Italy – until Antony showed up. Then Octavian was moved back to a second carriage and I rode beside him on a horse. I didn't think much of it, but Octavian was displeased.”

“Funny that Caesar should honor Antony so, when he hadn't even been invited on the campaign,” mused Lucilius.

“Yes, funny,” said Agrippa. “Octavian thought so too.”

And neither man said it, but Agrippa imagined the thought had to be there in the room with them. _Look how Antony repaid the honor._

**_Hour IX (Third Watch)_ **

Brutus did not dream, because Brutus did not sleep. And yet the messages from the gods had to get through somehow, did they not?

He stood out in the garden, trying in vain to let the cool air clear his mind and rejuvenate his body. The stars danced above his head and he wondered what that was supposed to mean; which god tried to communicate in such a fashion?

The house, when his gaze made its way back to earth, was edged with a soft orange glow. It meant his work was not yet done. But he did not need a vision to tell him this, and almost resented the reminder. Did the gods think him negligent? He was working on it.

“Brutus,” called a voice from the house.

He shut his eyes and willed the gods-affected vision to go away. He blinked them open and hastened back inside.

**_Hour X (Fourth Watch)_ **

Lucilius observed his friend, who looked incalculably worse than he had a few hours previous. Brutus's left hand had a tremor, and his eye wandered when he wasn't forcibly training it upon him. His skin looked waxy.

“Well?” said Brutus.

“I'm not sure I should report until you've slept,” he said, uneasy.

“Lucilius, if I sleep now, I likely won't wake up for three days.” Brutus fumbled for the back of his chair and dragged it back so he could sit. He looked at him. “Do you think Rome can last three days without a consul? No, no it cannot. Now what have you learned from the boy?”

He waited a few seconds longer, but it was useless to resist. Brutus would not be persuaded from his course, and Lucilius was loathe to prolong the situation by arguing. Perhaps if Antony weren't missing, he would have a method for dealing with this.

Though if Antony wasn't missing, it was likely Brutus would not be in such a state.

“He has opened up a little more,” said Lucilius. “He's talking to me. You gave no directive, so mostly it's been about Caesar's last campaign in Hispania. Nothing... nothing useful to current affairs.”

He spun a finger in the air. “Has he said anything about Octavian or Antony?”

“Nothing direct about Octavian. Antony, he claims he didn't know was missing.” Lucilius hesitated. “I believe him.” Agrippa had an open face, not one built for deceit.

Brutus nodded and drummed his hands briskly on the top of his desk. (Lucilius tried not to stare.) He gave a final, decisive slap to the wood and stood. “I'm going to go in and talk to him. I want you to wait fifteen minutes and then go back and try again.”

Lucilius felt lost. “Fifteen – ? Wait, Brutus. What are you going to say to him? What's the plan?”

Brutus turned on his heel at the door. His eyes were very bright. “I'm going to threaten him again. Fifteen minutes, Lucilius!”

And then he was swinging out of the room. His toga caught for a moment in the door jamb; Lucilius gazed blankly at the scrap of gray cloth before it was tugged violently free.

**_Hour XII (Fourth Watch)_ **

Julia awoke from her light, vigilant sleep. Her body knew something her mind did not; she was instantly alert, tense. Her eyes went to the window and she saw it was not quite dawn. Still black but the world sensed it wasn't for long.

A scuffling noise at the back door.

She sat up and swiveled out of bed, hands reaching for the objects she needed: the dagger beneath her pillow; the candle on the small bedside table. She tipped the candle against the dark red coals of a brazier, and felt a deceptive kindling of calm as the wick took and bore light into the room.

She moved swiftly through her small house to the back door.

She set the candle on the small shelf by the door and gripped her dagger. Her hand went to the handle. She raised the dagger.

“Who is it?” she said, voice clear and strong. A neighbor would reply; an attacker wouldn't bother, but just break through. But there was no response that she could hear. Tensing further, she reached out and pulled the door open.

The body that had slumped against the wood fell forward across the threshold. He caught himself with the wet slap of a blood-covered palm upon her stone floor.

A slight noise issued out of his mouth: hurt but clutched back, trying even now to conceal itself.

She dropped the dagger – it fell with a loud clatter, missing her own foot by inches – and swiftly reached for the candle. The light spilled over him, and he flinched slightly, even as his mouth crooked up in a faint, pained grin, which he directed blindly up at her.

“Hey, Mamma,” said her Marcus. “...I think I need some help.”


	3. Chapter 3

Lucilius slipped quietly from the room near the end of the hallway and crossed over to Brutus's study. He paused in the door frame, looking inside.

Brutus was on the couch beside his fireplace, but he wasn't reclining. He sat forward with uncharacteristic aggression, his forearms resting upon his knees, and stared at the empty corner.

“Brutus,” he said softly, hating to interrupt – whatever this was. His friend turned his head slightly, so that he could see a little of his grave profile. “I – I think I have something.”

He sprang from the couch. “He gave up Octavian? What finally did it?”

Lucilius hesitated, not liking this strange manic air. He had never seen Brutus in such a state. “I, well, I persuaded him that we really did just want to negotiate, and he felt confident enough in Octavian's talents to offer a location for... such a meeting.”

  
  


(“Your friend,” Agrippa had said, uncertain. “He is unwell? He seems much changed. I don't think I even understand his latest threat.”

Lucilius said, bracing, “The important thing for you to know is that Brutus _does not care about Octavian_. He wants peace above all, and he wants to know Mark Antony is safe. That's it.”

He would have felt guilty for saying such terrible things if he hadn't felt he was close to getting what they needed.)

  
  


He looked at Brutus now and saw what Agrippa had: there was something almost feverish behind his friend's eyes. He began, “Are you alright? You look—”

“I am fine,” said Brutus, impatient. “Now tell me what the boy said.”

“He knew only that Octavian had an arrangement with the College of the Vestals, and that it is likely the Vestalis Maxima would be able to arrange a meeting.” He darted a look over him. “Look, I know you won't sleep, but perhaps if you at least ate something...?”

Brutus waved him off absently, mind already leaping to the next problem. “I am eating, have been eating. Whatever.”

Lucilius folded his arms. “What have you been eating?”

“Your impression of Eleni needs work, my friend.” But he waited, and Brutus sighed. “I've had bread with some petaso and dates and, and seeds.”

“Seeds,” he said flatly.

“They are a convenient snack,” said Brutus. “Now – are we done? Can the consul of Rome get back to the important business of settling the city? Or do you want to tuck me in for a nap as well?”

 _Now that he mentioned it_... but Lucilius relented, stepping back. “Do you wish to send a message to the Vestalis Maxima? I don't think you should just show up at her doorstep, I hear she takes offense easily.”

“You don't know the half of it.” Brutus's eyes had wandered again, tracking something along the ceiling. But when Lucilius craned his head to try and follow his gaze, he drew back hurriedly. “Anyway, yes, please – have Eleni send our fastest slave. I am awaiting another.”

Lucilius nodded and withdrew. He hoped, but did not expect with any confidence, that Brutus will have recovered some of his better senses the next they spoke.  
  


* * *

  
Posca came at first light, presumably a couple hours before his mistress or the daughter would be up for the day. He was let in immediately to Brutus's study, and stood looking at him with nary a show of obeisance.

Venus stood in the corner and watched them, as she had been watching him since the final watch of the night.

“Do you think of yourself a brave man, Posca,” Brutus asked. His pride was a distant concern, but the frank, open assessment in the slave's eyes still called to it across the chasm of the past week.

“Brave? No, of course not. But smart....” His shoulders lifted with an easy shrug. “You approached me. I do not think you will have me whipped if I do not mind my manners.”

“Caesar did value intelligence above all things,” he said, setting his teeth. “Perhaps even above loyalty.”

“Fortunate, for you,” said Posca, who could apparently no sooner hold his tongue than an old dog learned not to bark.

It smarted, but Brutus did not react. He had a goal in mind and the slave's barbs would not distract him from it.

In the corner, Venus tapped her chin.

He folded his arms. “I say this to make clear where I stand, and what I expect from you. You may have pinned your hopes on Octavian, which is perfectly understandable after the Ides. But he has already lost his bid. We know where he is, and soon enough he will be dead. Unless you want to be parceled out to his nearest relation along with his linens, you should cooperate with me.”

Posca's expression was shrewd but unchanging. He did not appear particularly moved by Brutus's threat. “You know what happens to a slave who betrays his master. What are you offering, to counteract that risk?”

“What I took from you. What Caesar would have given you – your freedom and a small stipend. And you won't be betraying Octavian, not really. As I said, I already know where he is. That's not what I want from you.”

The slave spread his hands. “I cannot agree to a bargain without knowing what you expect me to give. Speak plainly, Brutus.”

The use of his name felt like prodding a bruise. But he was used to ignoring the pain by now. “I want to talk about the bookkeeping you did for the Republic under Caesar.”  
  


* * *

  
Venus had stood in the corner of his study for hours. He knew it was Venus with the same instinct he imagined he had known his mother's face as an infant.

She did not speak to him, and he tried not to look directly at her. It was for the best; if he addressed her, what could he say that would not swiftly turn to pleading? _For you alone have the power to bring aid to mortals,_ Lucretius had written, between his bouts of melancholy and madness. _S_ _ince Mars rules the savage claims of war, and he often let himself sink into your lap, completely overcome by the unceasing wound of love._

Brutus was no particular fan of Lucretius, of course, but that line of the poem had always stayed with him. It felt right, that love was something formidable, perhaps to be feared – that it could conquer the god of war himself; that it marked itself upon the body as a wound; that it was unceasing.

As a young man he shook his head over the irrationality of it and counted himself lucky to have been thus far spared.

But now, Venus stood in the corner of his study and smiled.  
  


* * *

  
Brutus walked through the ash-drifted streets of Rome. The narrow avenues in his neighborhood did not give sufficient circulation to the smoke, and every breath he drew carried with it a reminder of the week's unrest. But the Sacred Way lay just ahead, and it was wide enough to allow the air to clear.

Lepidus awaited him at the top of the street, where the buildings opened up and the pavers widened to meet the Sacred Way. His hands were fretful upon his toga, and he kept squinting down the broad road, as if expecting an army to crest into sight.

“You need not worry about the rebel legions,” said Brutus on his approach. His personal guard opened to swallow Lepidus and then closed ranks around the two of them.

“I – what? No. I'm fine, thank you, and yourself?”

“What?” said Brutus, confused.

Lepidus quit his anxious glancing to the distance and looked at him. Then he looked closer. “Are you alright? You look—”

“Of the two of us, I'm not the one babbling. What's the matter with you?”

He grimaced. “This bad business, is all. Has my entire household on edge. And I can't say I'm looking forward to this meeting you've roped me into.”

Brutus glanced at the sun and indicated they should resume walking.

“But I'm assuming I can count on your support if the Vestalis Maxima is reluctant to turn Octavian over?” he asked briskly.

“Well,” said Lepidus, and then no more.

After a few seconds, all the sprawling tendrils of his wayward thoughts paused and drifted back to the present. Brutus turned and stared; Lepidus avoided eye contact. He cleared his throat a few times, the lines on his face flexing to hold in some painful emotion.

Brutus felt a pinprick of pain behind his left eye: a warning for what was to come. “Do not tell me,” he said, low, “the chief pontiff of Rome is intimidated by a vestal virgin, do not tell me, Lepidus—”

“My good man, I have not tried to _say_ anything,” he said quickly.

Brutus nodded readily. “So you will support me if the Vestalis Maxima resists my demand that she turn Octavian over.”

“I – hm.”

“You know I have absolute imperium now,” he said. “If I strangled you and left your body on this road, no one could do anything about it.”

Lepidus tucked his toga tightly over his arms and raised his chin in an inadequate attempt to hide how rattled he was. “Power has changed you, Brutus,” he said stiffly.

“No,” he said. “It really hasn't.”

And they proceeded on to the House of the Vestals.  
  


* * *

  
Horatia of the Appian had been selected by Julius Caesar in his first Vestal Capture during the consulship of Silanus and Murena. She was the youngest Vestalis Maxima in recent memory. It was said she controlled all operations within her college with both the finesse a prodigal cithara player and the ruthlessness of a gold mine overseer.

On the few occasions he had met her, Brutus had come away with the sacrilegious thought that it was a pity _she_ could not be consul instead.

Horatia met them alone on the steps of her temple, back straight and hands clasped together beneath the folds of her palla. The ash floating in the air disappeared when it lit upon her white garb. Her expression was serene but already implacable.

Lepidus cleared his throat again. Brutus suppressed all irritation and hastened to speak first, lest the Pontifex's wavering weakened their footing right off.

“Vestalis Maxima Horatia,” he said. “I am glad you have come out to speak with us on this most stressful of days.”

“Consul Brutus,” she said. Her dark, hawkish eyes shifted to the side. “Pontifex Maximus Lepidus.”

And then she said no more.

Brutus shifted up a step, so he could address the priestess without craning his neck. “We became aware early this morning that a man has sought refuge in your temple. We are here to request that you turn him over to our charge.”

“Mm,” she said. “No.”

“No, a man has not sought refuge or—”

“I will not be throwing Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus to the wolves,” she said simply. “Or to Mark Antony, which I consider much the same thing.”

He did not let his expression move from its polite smile. He gestured to the empty steps. “Do you see Consul Antony here?”

“You are partisans of his – do _not_ ,” she said with a warning in her voice, “do not try to make a fool of me by claiming otherwise. I have watched fires burn across the city's seven hills, and the truth can be read in the smoke.”

“You mistake me, Priestess. I do not claim otherwise. But may I ask,” he asked, already regretting it, “why you are taking such a hard position against the consul?”

“The Vestals have known we could not trust Mark Antony since he allied himself with Clodius Pulcher.”

“Why, that was years ago,” Lepidus began, but his words dried up as soon as her burning gaze lashed his way.

“That _was_ years ago,” said Brutus. “Which is a century, really, in terms of Roman political alliances.”

She returned her gaze to the middle distance. “During his tenure of consul, he has also interfered with Vestal business. Specifically, the Vestal estate. This has led us to believe his outrageous disregard for our institution has not changed from when he was a younger man.”

Brutus blinked and narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. He did not dare glance at Lepidus for assistance. A few steps above them, Venus lifted a lovely hand and made a familiar motion in the air.

“This is about the paint job for the House?” he demanded, turning back to the Vestalis Maxima, whose eyes briefly widened in startlement, before she resumed control of her expression.

“Indeed, it is,” she said with great dignity. “The College of the Vestals asks for very little from the State. We must guard against all disrespect, for disrespect too quickly can slide into heresy.”

He gritted his teeth. “Vestalis Maxima, the House of the Vestals will be painted. It is scheduled to happen as soon as the temperatures rise sufficiently to allow the paint to set.”

“Perhaps you may come back for the boy then,” she suggested.

His expression spasmed, and Brutus swung away, turning his back on the other two so that he may glare out across city. His thoughts raced, seeking possible paths forward, but to no avail. Unspoken provisional appellation of Dictator or no, he could not break the sacred seclusion of the Vestals.

He breathed in and the air tasted of a thousand funeral pyres.

“If you will not release him into our custody,” he said finally, turning back to meet her curious gaze, “then perhaps you will permit me to meet with Octavian. Unarmed, just the two of us.” He spread his hands. “All I want is to end this conflict. Help me do that, Horatia.”

She studied him, curious eyes flicking over his undoubtedly worn face. Behind her, Lepidus's expression was set in a cringing grimace. And behind them both, Venus reclined easily upon the steps as if the stone was warmed by a summer sun.

“That is acceptable to us,” Horatia said at last. “You may wait in the public chamber of the temple while I send for him.”

Safely unseen by the priestess, Lepidus raised his hands and gave Brutus two energetic thumbs up.  
  


* * *

  
Antony had never been shipwrecked, not properly, but he imagined it felt something like this. Pain came upon him like a tide, running up along his body and receding again. His heart beat too fast and his breath would not adequately fill his lungs. His joints felt heavy.

His eyelids fluttered and he found himself staring up at a familiar ceiling, cast in the cool winter sunlight.

Julia was singing quietly in the next room. She was a little off-key, for she was no great musical talent, but this had never mattered, because Julia never sang for anyone but herself. He'd always enjoyed the sound of her singing anyway.

The tide came upon him again and he was helpless not to close his eyes.  
  


* * *

  
The public chamber in the temple was sparsely appointed and kept cooler than was comfortable with only one brazier. Brutus imagined this was a deliberate choice on the part of the Vestals: let few in and make sure their stay was short.

He stood in this chilly room for half an hour before the door opened and a slim figure slipped in. He was pale and moved slowly, and Brutus saw why as he took in the bandage covering his arm and shoulder, immobilizing much of the right side of his body. Something in Brutus latched onto this injury, this evidence of a struggle and a loss. He did not know how to feel.

For his part, Octavian considered him for a long moment and said:

“The doctor was unable to assure me I would regain full use of it.”

“Oh?” said Brutus politely.

“Yes. And... I know I should grieve its loss, but when I awoke today, I found I could not bring myself to do it.” He slowly walked along the edge of the room, a figure traveling the circumference of a circle with Brutus at the center, never letting the radius shrink.

Brutus gathered himself and said, “Your swift acceptance of the injury is very Stoic. I commend you.”

The boy smiled faintly at his nonplussed tone. “You shouldn't. The wound is one I received after dispatching Mark Antony. Oh, he was a wild, flailing thing – I did not step back in time.” Octavian looked down, considering the bandaged arm thoughtfully. “The scar should be good. I imagine I will point to it at parties and tell the story of how I avenged my father.”

“I wasn't aware you attended parties,” Brutus heard himself say. In the corner, Venus had no guidance to give. He had a wound, a wound that was unceasing, and it was going to kill him.

Octavian stared at him unblinking with those strange blue eyes. “You don't believe me,” he said after a moment.

“No,” he said calmly. “I think you are lying. I think – if Mark Antony was dead, you would not feel the need to hide behind the skirts of the Vestals.”

“Do not take my abundance of caution as a sign of doubt, Consul Brutus. You made that mistake once before. And look how it turned out.”

  
  


(“He gave in too easy,” the Egyptian queen remarked after the negotiations over Caesar's paternity and estate were settled.

“He needs the funds more than the name, which is now poison in Rome,” said Brutus, dismissive.

“And here I thought you knew Caesar?” Cleopatra's smile was usually tinged with mockery, but this time it also carried a warning. “He has a way of returning to claim victory, in the end.”)

  
  


“If your point is that I should have had you killed months ago – I agree, and thank you for the advice on future moves.”

The boy was unbothered by the threat. “You did not come here to kill me.”

“I didn't?”

“You came to negotiate. If there is one thing you are known to dislike more than your position as consul, after all, it is war. So let us end it – if you like, we can even end both. Here, today.”

“You just told me Consul Antony is dead by your hand,” said Brutus, who had a wound, a wound that was unceasing. “And you think we can still negotiate?”

Finally, a frown appeared on Octavian's face. “I see no reason why not. Nothing of importance has changed.”  
  


* * *

  
The light in the room was changed when Antony opened his eyes again. Julia leaned over him with a red-stained washcloth.

“It is good you are finally awake,” she said. “You must've taken a blow to the head – in the dark I did not see it.”

“Eh,” he croaked, the effort to speak making the pain in his head intensify. “I have taken many blows to the head in the past – it's a trifling wound compared to a hole in the side.”

“That may be so, but I would have preferred to spare my pillow linens,” she said and subsided to the chair next to the bed. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Could he? He wasn't sure.

“I... pursued Octavian onto the Caelian, and he and his pet poet ambushed me in an alley. The hill was crawling with Julian cultists, so I dared not try to go far. Have you thought about moving?” he asked her abruptly. “I mean, the neighborhood's really gone to cack.”

She did not appear to be in the mood to talk real estate, however.

“You recall when we last spoke – in the fall, I mean, not last night when you were insensate – I asked you if you were being careful, and if you knew what you were doing.” She folded her arms atop the bed and leaned forward to look him in the eye. “How's that going?”

His mouth pulled up at one corner. “Well, there were a couple days earlier this month where things seemed to be almost good.”

She shook her head slowly. “If you had simply asked for my help—”

“Excuse me,” he said, tone climbing, “under whose cruel ministrations am I currently—”

“I mean before all this, before it came to this.”

If he could move, he might have made a baffled gesture. He settled for confused squinting. “What you could you have possibly done?” he asked, his words starting at rebellious and sliding quickly into exhaustion. After all, when he looked back on the past few months, he saw no choices but the ones that led here.

“I would have spoken to Marcus Tullius Cicero, for one.”

He made a faint, strangled noise and lapsed into silence. They stared at one another.

Antony could not approach the idea, could not directly look at it. The image of his mother taking Cicero aside to, to, what? Trying to encompass the horror put pressure on some little known pocket of hysteria in his soul.

“Julia,” he said seriously, “If I had two paths before me, one resulting in me bleeding to death on the Caelian last night and the other being whole in body but spared the man's needling because _my_ _mother_ told him to leave off – I'd gladly take the shiv to the back.”

She was unimpressed with this resolve. “You've never been willing to accept my help. Not now, and not when you were younger.”

“Oh, what would you've done when I was younger, given me pointers on fellatio?”

As was typical when he lashed out, the bruising impact of the words somehow only turned back on him. Julia herself was unshockable; when he glanced over, she was looking at him with clear, dry eyes and a serious set to her mouth.

“So we're going to talk about it, then?” she said evenly.

“No.” He shook his head for good measure, though this made the room spin a little. He took a careful breath. “...No, we are not.”

“Marcus—”

“There's no time,” he said, as if that was the main reason. He flicked his fingers down on the coverlet. “You need to get word to Lucius. They likely have no idea what happened and it's been... I don't know how long it's been. But long enough to cause trouble, surely.”

She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes dark and cutting. As his eyes were reportedly her eyes, he had to wonder when his looked like this, and what their effect on people was – did they feel wary, like he did now? Did they feel frustrated or embattled?

How could Brutus be fond of such a pair of eyes, he wondered.

She broke the gaze, mouth going tight. Her hands reached up and straightened the blanket over his body: a rare unnecessary movement from her, for he had not moved in any way to dislodge it.

“Sleep,” she said, “and I will send for your brother.”

During the night he had been weak from blood loss and half-delirious, and she had helped him into bed and kissed his forehead. He was pretty sure he had not dreamed this; he could almost feel the light press of her lips. It was day now, and he knew himself; he could not ask for it.

In the space of her hesitation beside the bed before she moved away, he wondered if she grappled with a similar issue.  
  


* * *

  
Octavian was still talking.

Brutus had never once in his life felt compelled to offer sympathy to Atia of the Julii – indeed they both made it a point to avoid one another where possible – but for the first time he found himself struck by a sense of pity. O matrons of Rome, what have your sons wrought, and you through them?

“Can I ask, before we get into what color tapestry you want at your coronation,” he said, interrupting the lecture, “why are you doing all this? You're rich, you're young. You could have a good life in private society.”

“Private society,” Octavian repeated, in much the same tone he might have used if Brutus had suggested he move to Arpinum and ply a trade in urine sales.

“There are many avenues open for an intelligent man from a good family,” he said repressively.

And Octavian – laughed. It was a strange laugh, a little high and a little artificial; it gave the impression the boy was not one for laughter in the usual course of his days.

Brutus raised his eyebrows and waited.

“What an... odd sort of man you are,” said Octavian. “There is no such thing.” He tilted his head and considered Brutus with those cold eyes. “Private lives are for – women, I suppose, and slaves and freedman. _Laborers_. It is what they all get in exchange for their submission. At the end of the day, in the seclusion of their home, or room, or I suppose even just their own head, they have absolute freedom from the State.”

Brutus wrinkled his nose. “What, precisely, do you do at the end of _your_ day, that you would distinguish this freedom of theirs from ours?”

“I might say, our days do not end – I can see you know this well, from the fatigue in your face.” He smiled briefly before his eyes slipped away and he continued, “But no, it's not like that. We cannot have freedom from the State because we are the State.”

Brutus's hands wanted to clench into fists, and it was only through great effort that he did not move. He said, missing dry by a hair and landing on hoarse, “You confuse the title for the man.”

Octavian countered, “And I put forward you have it the wrong way around. There is no man, only the title.”

This was why he had come here, Brutus thought. He hadn't expected to get anything useful out of Octavian, not really. But some part of him had known he needed to see him. To understand who, and what, he was facing as he moved forward in the coming days.

Brutus said nothing. To Agrippa, he had issued threats, but it was not his usual custom – he hadn't, he realized, known he had a custom until just then. But as he looked at this pale, arrogant boy, he followed his instincts. And his instincts said: say nothing before you destroy him.

“I think we're done here,” he said.

This startled Octavian, though he quickly hid it. “But we haven't come to any agreement.”

“What sort of agreement did you envision me arriving at with a would-be tyrant?” he asked, curious.

The word made Octavian immediately grow cold and distant. “That's going to be your line, is it? Brutus, who hates all tyrants.” The scorn was a distant sting.

“Did you not see the coins we issued during the summer?” He felt like he had summoned Antony's spirit, and it was a little thrilling. “Cassius thought we should capitalize on the notion – literally.”

“You know, all my life, I've heard what a noble man you are,” said Octavian, blinking slowly. “But you're just like the rest of them, in the end, aren't you? A hand-wringing do-nothing who will sit like a boulder in the way of progress.”

“I'm glad we understand each other,” said Brutus.

He inclined his head civilly and took his leave.  
  


* * *

  
Antony woke again to Fulvia's hands on his face, cupping his chin and turning his head to inspect it with a narrow eye.

“ _Careful_ ,” said Julia sharply from the doorway. “He is greatly weakened, and needs rest.”

“'M not _weak_ ,” he said thickly, the words sticking in his parched mouth. He needed water.

“No, of course not,” said Lucius, who stood beside Fulvia and beamed at him with a relieved smile.

“Have you never treated a wounded man before?” said Julia to Fulvia, who had straightened at Antony's words. “Please tell me the army doctor handles Lucius when the need arises.”

Fulvia said, “Your son stands before you perfectly hale, so clearly whatever happens, it _works_. Or can you not make him out with those old eyes of yours?”

Antony widened his eyes meaningfully at Lucius, who had frozen with his customary look of abashed awkwardness. But under Antony's gaze, a new resolve formed. He nodded grimly and turned to the women.

“Fulvia, darling, that's enough – Mamma, Marcus needs to talk to us more than he needs rest right now.”

Fulvia and Julia looked at him with matched skepticism, and Antony could see the moment his little brother began to waver.

“Julia,” he said, making the words come out strong with reserves of energy he did not know he possessed, “the quickest way to get us all out of your house is for you to let us talk unencumbered.”

“Who said anything about you leaving this house?” she asked, coming forward. “You shouldn't be moved for at least a week, wound like that.”

“The city is a fucking mess right now, in case you hadn't noticed,” he said. And he began to sit up, because talking while lying flat on his back made him feel uncomfortably helpless. He achieved a height of a few inches when a pained grunt fought its way past his clenched teeth, and then three sets of hands were shoving him back down onto the bed.

Julia's were the last to leave his chest. She looked him in the eye and said, “If you're going to be like that, then I will leave and let you talk. But don't you try to get up again – if you do, I swear to the Great Mother that I will follow you around for the next six months, wailing and rending my garments.”

She would, too, if only to spite him. Antony nodded reluctantly, and she drew herself up and left the room.

He waited until she was out of earshot and then asked, “Have you spoken to Brutus?”

Fulvia, sitting on the bed at his hip, folded her arms. “Not since Lucius handed Agrippa over to him.”

His midsection tensed and immediately gave warning to what would happen if he sat forward like he wished. “You captured Agrippa?” he asked Lucius. And when he nodded: “But – I don't understand, why would you give him to Brutus? What's _he_ going to do, offer him dinner and a soft couch?”

Lucius looked pained. “Do not say that.”

“Well?”

“He was very—”

“Pushy,” said Fulvia.

“Firm,” said Lucius. “Brutus was adamant that he be the one to handle the boy.”

“The boy,” echoed Antony. His head was killing him. “Don't call him a _boy_ , that's – I don't know what that is, but don't do it, alright?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will it all to go away – the pain, the exhaustion, the lingering feeling of dread. But the mortal mind was poorly equipped for such tasks, apparently.

He said, eyes still closed, “Send word to Brutus that I am alive and annoyed. Then you must tell me about the movements of our legions.”

But he didn't see either Lucius or Fulvia agree to his request, for he was asleep again within the minute.  
  


* * *

  
“Lucilius.” called Brutus, and hastened down the corridor of his house before his friend could come his way. He needed this conversation to take place within earshot of Agrippa's room.

Venus paced beside him, though she showed no effort at it.

“...Are you alright?” asked Lucilius. He kept asking him this question, Brutus did not know why he kept asking this question.

“ _No_ ,” he said.

“Oh, so you haven't located—” he broke off when Brutus shook his head. “I'm sorry to hear it. So what now?”

“Now we wait, what else? But the city is ours.” Brutus met Lucilius's eyes and silently apologized to his friend. “Octavian is dead.”

“Dead?” he echoed, his soldier voice effortlessly carrying without any of the effort Brutus might have displayed.

“Yes, he – well, refused to negotiate, or rather, negotiate adequately. And I'm afraid my men were a little overzealous. Lucius Antonius dragged him from the House of Vestals and slew him on the street.”

Lucilius glanced at the door, face troubled. He lowered his voice. “But I promised the boy that we would not harm his friend. He will not take this well.”

Brutus did not, could not, match his discretion. “Nor should he. But I do wish to thank him. If not for his help, this whole situation might have dragged on.”

“Don't,” said Lucilius quickly, aghast. “Don't _thank_ him, are you mad? Brutus, what are you thinking?”

His stomach felt as if was lined with iron. He felt many emotions at once and was ignoring them all – it was like the Ides all over again. Sick panic poured into his body, filling up his limbs. He should have been shaking or weeping, but none of it reached the surface. He had discovered in March he could be ruthless and still live with himself; he had yet to find an act he could not tolerate.

Maybe this was what leading Rome was: the continual hunt for a world that would refuse him.

“How did you think this was going to end?” he asked his friend. Lucilius said nothing for a long moment, brow pinched and gaze averted. “He marched on Rome, Lucilius. And now his leader is dead, his cause is lost.”

“But I thought you wanted peace,” he said, tone not quite questioning. “An end to all the in-fighting.”

“I do. I want that. And I believe this is the first step in how we get it.”

Brutus took a breath and slipped a hand into his toga. He drew out a slim dagger and hefted it in his open palm; it's deadly sharp edge gleamed between the two of them. Lucilius stared down at it and then looked up at Brutus, eyes searching his.

“It would be best for everyone,” he said, “if the boy took the honorable path, and did it himself.”  
  


* * *

  
Agrippa asked that he be allowed to do it in the garden, beneath the open sky. He was calm, almost deferential – that was the worst of it.

Lucilius stayed beside him until it was done, and the boy just a body. Then he requested permission to return to his legion across the city. He could not quite look at his consul.

Brutus assented.  
  


* * *

  
Antony dreamed of doors, or what passed for doors in his life; he was in Caesar's campaign tent.

He was alone. The map table was undisturbed, the geography on display alien to him no matter how hard he tried to make out the lines – and he did try, for what felt like a long time. He flattened his hands upon the parchment and put his nose close to the ink, but he could not read a word.

Outside the tent, a terrible noise. He straightened from the table and—

and—

He opened his eyes.

Brutus stood over him, hand hovering but not landing. At Antony's blinking confusion, the hand retracted.

They stared at one another. Brutus licked his lips and appeared to be about to speak, but stopped. He repeated this twice, but words failed to materialize. It began to unsettle Antony, who wondered if he was still in the world of dreams, and therefore alone.

“You look fucking terrible,” said Antony. “When's the last time you slept?”

Some peculiar, complicated expression worked itself across his face, and Brutus said, “I'm not sure. I've been dosing myself with the seed of the strychnine tree.”

His eyebrows shot up. Strychnine was what gladiators used to ward off fatigue during all-day bouts in the arena. “...You hallucinating yet?”

Brutus settled, cross-legged and careful, at the top of the bed beside Antony's pillow. He shook his head absently. “My mind is too disciplined to succumb to hallucination.”

“You thought I was a portent of death a few months back,” he reminded him.

His chin lifted. “But I didn't hallucinate you, did I?”

Antony has to tighten his abdominal muscles in an inadequate attempt at holding in the laughter; it hurt him anyway, because everything hurt just then. “Your peerless reasoning defeats me once again.” He tipped his head back. “Oh, I shouldn't laugh.”

Brutus reached out and covered his hand with his own. He looked into Antony's eyes intently and said, “It's all right. You can laugh at me, if you want.”

“ _No_ ,” said Antony slowly, a little unnerved by his gaze, “I meant, because of my stitches.” He blinked down at their tangled hands but did not move to pull away. “I – how fares the city?”

Brutus reached over with his free hand and brushed his hair from his forehead; Antony had to close his eyes.

“At least one temple has been ransacked,” said Brutus, still with that same odd, distracted tone.

Antony made a considering sound. “Well – which temple?”

“That's not funny,” he said immediately.

“Right. Anything else?”

“Yes. We don't have a count of the wounded and dead, but the stack of unclaimed bodies awaiting removal from the pomerium will start to smell soon. Regarding our own personal tallies, you've maimed one teenager and I've driven another to unnecessary suicide.”

“Not sure why you have to bring their ages into it,” said Antony, a little aggrieved. His eyes opened. “Wait, is Agrippa—”

Brutus continued, determined, “ _Also_ —”

“Hm.”

“I estimate one-tenth of the city has been on fire at some point. We've lost seventy-five houses and counting.”

Antony waited a few seconds before checking, “Are you done?”

“For now,” said Brutus, a little bleakly.

They contemplated the situation. Eventually Antony ventured to say, “How long have we been consuls?”

“You longer than I,” he said stiffly, likely sensing where this was going.

“That doesn't count,” he said. “But – barely nine months, right? Not even nine months.”

“It's just as well Rome has never produced a great historian,” said Brutus moodily.

“But that cuts both ways, doesn't it. A historian might be able to remind us of a more disastrous consular record.”

“Perhaps if we spy Sallust loitering around the city, we can ask him.”

Antony shook his head. “Conflict of interest,” he said. “He'll want to talk this whole incident up, as he'll be the one recording it. If you're going to be a historian, you know, you might as well be _the_ historian. And you don't get to be _the_ historian without some good material.”

“Talking to you is making me feel like I have a head injury,” said Brutus. “So are we officially for or against having historians in Rome?”

“Does it matter? One will pop up eventually. Not much we can do about it.” But then Antony brightened. “I suppose you could make it illegal.”

“I'll get right on that.” Brutus's chin fell into his palm and he gazed at his co-consul. He looked like he could sit at his side all day.

Antony considered the hand holding his for a long moment before asking, reluctant, “Are we moving soon? I cannot believe Julia will enjoy having her house turned into a garrison.”

“Yes, soon.” The hand tightened. “We'll move soon.”

But they sat together in restful silence for another hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't take strychnine, kids!
> 
> The Lucretius quote is from a translation of On the Nature of Things by Walter Englert. Book 1, 29-34.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a long, painfully slow journey back to Brutus's house. Julia objected to her son moving, and had to be persuaded her house was not secure against the ongoing threat. Then Antony refused the litter compartment, but he went alarmingly white the moment he tried to stand and very nearly opened his stitches.

After that, Brutus was done arguing with everyone. And so: one consul lay on the litter, shielded from sight, while the other walked along its side for any to see.

And there were many to see; the city was only beginning to pick itself up again and there was much to do on the streets. People slowed and stopped upon catching sight of the informal procession: by now instinctively fearing any presence of armed guards within the pomerium, and stirring restlessly once they realized just who they were guarding.

The streets held judgment in reserve, and Brutus was aware of it. He would have to tell them what to think, soon enough. But – tomorrow. Tomorrow.

His own vision was beginning to fray along the edges, kindling and burning into darkness. It was good the litter bearers had to walk so slow to avoid jostling their burden, for he could not himself walk any faster. Every few steps he reached out a hand to the edge of the litter: for balance, and reassurance.

When they arrived home, Brutus oversaw the transfer of Antony to his bed chambers. The other man was unconscious and disturbingly vulnerable, with his head tossed back and dark curls damply sticking to his forehead. Brutus gave instructions for a doctor to call on them in four hours and then ordered everyone out – even Eros, who had been anxiously awaiting Antony's return for days.

“He is fine,” Brutus said to him, exhaustion making what should have been kind words, curt. “He will be up and acting bullheaded in no time at all. Now leave us.”

Once alone, he'd intended to start preparations for his next address to the Senate, for his plan required careful rhetoric, but he made the mistake of sitting for a second beside Antony on the bed.

He looked at him somberly. “I think,” he said to his slack features, “this is going to be... quite terrible, Antony. What I have to do, it's.”

He tried to say more, but the words wouldn't come. He was full of formless feelings and impulses, and could not seem to assemble them into any actionable plan. That boded ill. He shook his head and ran a hand down his face. The skin beneath his fingers felt oddly numb; it was like touching cooling wax.

“I. I think,” he said again, and then no more, for he was slipping to the side, sprawling across the mattress – one arm still reaching out for Antony but not quite making the connection.

Thus, the consuls slept.  
  


* * *

  
Antony was sitting up against a mound of pillows and tolerantly allowing Eros to fuss over him when Brutus next woke.

His entire body felt sore, like he'd been dunked in the Tiber and wrung out, muscle-by-muscle. He thought even his eyelashes seemed to hurt as he turned his face into the bed and and swiveled one dry and faintly burning eye up to look at Antony.

“I slept?” he asked. He did not recognize his own voice.

Antony glanced down at him, eyebrow a cool arch. “That's one word for it, I suppose. My own slumber was interrupted by you sometime in the third watch of the night.”

A frown twitched across his face. “...I don't recall this.”

“You wouldn't,” he said shortly. “You were having some kind of peculiar fit. Flopping about like a dying fish.”

Brutus's eye shifted to Eros for confirmation, and the slave averted his gaze but gave a slight nod.

“Wasn't very kingly, must say,” added Antony.

Despite his words, he looked tightly drawn and locked down, the kind of repressed misery Brutus had not seen in a long time.

“It must've been the strychnine seeds,” he said. He tentatively inched closer, hand slipping stealthily beneath the cover someone had thrown over him.

“Must've been,” said Antony. He did not look at him again.

Brutus's fingers touched his hip – no pressure, just four discrete points of contact. He felt better for it, though the other man pretended not to notice.

“I don't understand,” Brutus said thoughtfully to himself. “I've never heard of any gladiators reporting muscle spasms or seizures.”

“I imagine they do not take the stuff continually over the course of several days.” His tone plainly said _you idiot_ , but either because of Eros's presence or not wanting to admit his own unease, he did not utter the words aloud. Brutus thought they both might have felt better if he had.

His fingers slid forward, palm cupping Antony's hip more surely. He wanted nothing more than to roll on top of him and bury his face in his neck, but he still could not quite move, and anyway, Antony was as likely to jab him in the kidneys as allow it.

“You cannot possibly be angry with me,” he said. “I mean, you have a _stab wound_ in your side.”

Antony narrowed his eyes at the opposite wall. “When have you ever known me to care about hypocrisy? Enough with the broth,” he said to Eros. “Bring me some actual food.”

Eros lowered the bowl and said deferentially, “They say the blade missed your intestines by half a digitus, Dominus, but by all means, if you wish to tax your digestive system right now, this slave cannot stop you.”

“I can,” said Brutus, tapping his hip. “Drink the broth, Antony.”

He found the energy to drag himself up the bed a few more inches. His nose was mashed to the other man's forearm.

After the prolonged agony of anxiety of the past week, he was empty of all but gratitude. He needed no great success or gain in life, he decided. If this was all he could get for the rest of his days – pain and exhaustion but the hairs of Antony's arm tickling his nose and the sharp edge of his hipbone beneath his palm, sturdy and unbroken – well. He might count himself on the balance happy. He felt a powerful and urgent need to share this with Antony, so he did.

“Oh good,” said Antony with false brightness to Eros. “Do you hear that? He's still delirious.”

Let him think what he needed to think, thought Brutus as his eyes fluttered shut again. Nothing could piece this precious bubble of quiet happiness.  
  


* * *

  
“Am I in Tartarus, standing next to Tantalus himself?” said Brutus, some hours later. “With this brilliant command team, I can see why the riots were handled as well as they were.”

He was on a couch near the fire, having been prodded and kicked by Antony until he removed himself from the bed before Lucius and Fulvia were admitted to the room. He suspected it was less the company than the man's own lingering temper that motivated such sour behavior, but it still put Brutus in a foul mood.

“Yes, perhaps if we had sat at home and feasted while the city was burning down like others did, everything might have gone over so much better,” said Fulvia.

“Home?” he said frostily. “What _home_ , you two live like roving long-haired Hellenists and Antony lives with me when he's not kipping in his campaign tent like a sulky—”

“I think we're getting distracted from the point here,” said Lucius, uneasy.

“There's a point?” asked Antony tonelessly. He was staring at the ceiling and hadn't moved or said another word in the past twenty minutes. Even Brutus's admittedly desperate needling hadn't provoked him into animation.

He always got like this when he was seriously injured, Brutus reminded himself. As a consolation, it left much to be desired.

Lucius was determined to continue along as if his brother had not spoken. He, too, was familiar with his habitual melancholic mindset under injury and illness. “Octavian is still in the House of the Vestals. We don't know how long that will remain the case, and the moment he moves everything will get much more complicated."

“How's this, then,” said Fulvia. “I disguise myself as a Vestal Virgin and sneak onto the grounds. I find him, and I kill him.”

“Oh, please,” said Brutus. “With the way you walk? They'll pick you out as an impostor within three minutes.”

Fulvia narrowed her eyes, but before she could take a step towards him, Antony said from the bed, “Ignore him, he gets bitchy when he drinks.”

“Antony,” said Brutus, “I've had nothing but water today.”

Lucius began, “Do you two maybe need to—”

“ _No_ ,” said the consuls sharply.

“Right,” he sighed.  
  


* * *

  
Word went out to the supporters of Divus Julius that their flamen was alive and safe in the bosom of the Vestals.

On the Esquiline, Lucilius heard the news while helping haul bodies out of the wreck of a tenement. He had to stop for a moment and lean against a charred post.

He was almost more confused than betrayed, and that added to the sting of it; he knew he wasn't a smart man, but this was the first time he felt a fool. His friend Brutus had made him a fool – a fool who could stand over a boy and look into his ashamed eyes and tell him he was doing right; a fool who could hold the blade steady when young hands trembled, and—

“You can take a shift in the bedroll, you know,” a brother soldier said, pausing and looking at him closely. “You've done enough, Lucilius.”

“I know,” he said, straightening and scrubbing his face. He could feel the track of ash his hand left on his cheeks. But better ash than tears. “I know I have.”  
  


* * *

  
A couple days passed and no new developments revealed themselves. This was cause for lingering tension for some, namely Brutus, and a reason for celebration to others, that is, everyone else.

“I think it is safe to say the unrest has quit the city,” said Cicero to Brutus. “Perhaps now Octavian can be permitted to leave the House of the Vestals under a banner of peace?”

“But what is stopping him?” asked Brutus. “I thought Octavian had no connection to the invading force?”

They were in the atrium. Brutus was not inclined to invite the man further into the house. He waited for Cicero to notice the slight, but the other man's attention was preoccupied with the matters he had brought to bear upon the meeting.

Cicero smiled thinly. “Let us not pretend the boy does not have a reasonable concern regarding his personal safety. Antony nearly cut his arm off – the boy showed me the wound beneath his bandage. Positively barbaric.”

“I see.” Brutus's hand sketched a deliberating motion through the air. “And did he happen to mention during this close conversation of yours what he was doing right before he received the wound? That he and his companion nearly gutted Antony?”

“I'm not sure I agree with that order of events.”

“Oh?”

“Antony was the one pursuing them, after all. And what has become of our society that a well-born man cannot defend himself?”

Brutus's expression did not change. “I'll tell you, as soon as you explain to me how a boy with no senatorial standing can feel empowered to attack a consul of Rome. Or that you, of all people, would approve of it.”

Cicero sighed: one of his gusty, fastidious sighs that sounded like they should shift the whole world. “My friend, Brutus – may I speak honestly?”

 _If you are capable of it._ His lips stretched, but it was not a smile. “Please do.”

“It would be a waste of both our time for me to pretend I regret the attack on Antony. But it's done and the city must move forward. Agreed?”

“...I agree.”

“To that end, with the emergency now past us, I expect to hear you will be relinquishing your expanded powers forthwith?”

“Is that why you have come here this morning, Cicero?” Now he did smile. He folded his arms and tapped his elbows. “When I am satisfied the emergency _is_ over, I will be overjoyed to do just that – by the way, why is it just you here? I thought I saw Cassius with you at the gate.”

“Hm?” Cicero's brow was pinched, his mouth set in a deep frown. He had not liked Brutus's response. “Oh – Cassius could not stay. He sends his regards, but he had other business to attend to. Something about gardening.”  
  


* * *

  
Antony reclined on a couch in the Junii garden and contemplated the dull gray sky with an inimical eye. He was tired, even though he had done nothing all day but lie about. The ache in his side would not permit him to sleep. Part of him suspected it would always be like this. One recovered from injuries slower as one got older, after all. Who was to say this would not be the one that stayed with him?

Someone coughed lightly and stepped around the side of the house. He came dagger point first; the wicked edge caught the pale light and glinted.

Antony glanced over. He sighed. “So in the end – it's to be you?”

“I'd say nothing personal,” said Cassius, “But it's actually – quite personal. The Pierides do not speak to me, so I am writing the next chapter for Rome on my own.”

Antony smirked a tired acknowledgment and directed another look up at the sky. At least he would not have to deal with the tedious injury for too long, it seemed.

He was aware of where the man was and the pace with which he moved through the garden towards him. A lifetime of watching his back, of sleeping with a blade, and Antony was going to die like a helpless babe in Brutus's back garden.

Alright, so it smarted, a little.

“I forget, what precisely did I do to you again?” he asked.

“You've stood in my way, time and again. You stole the glory of Caesar's killing, and then you stole all the honor of the deed.”

“Can you really call it stealing, when I was the one who did the deed?”

Cassius's fingers flexed on the hilt of his blade. He gave Antony a scathing look. “We had sixty men, I think we could have handled it without your help.”

Antony's laugh sent a bolt of lancing pain through his midsection. He caught it back and replaced it with a smile. One with teeth. “Sixty to one, and you know what? I'd still put my money on Caesar.”

“You thought so highly of the man,” said Cassius. “It's a wonder you could do it at all. Which brings us, I suppose, to the other source of my irritation. Your abduction of Brutus's attention.”

“Look, what is this? Are you enamored with him?”

“What?” His face twisted with revulsion. “No.”

“That actually makes it weirder,” said Antony.

“We were supposed to be the Liberators of the Republic,” snapped Cassius. “We were going to—”

But his words warbled to a halt, and he looked down in shock at the gladius that had sprout from his chest. He looked back up to Antony, who could only shrug a little helplessly, reflecting his shock back like a looking glass.

“Whoa, there,” said a new voice, terribly affable. “Sorry about that.”

Antony craned his head. “Titus Pullo? What are you doing, lurking behind corners?”

The gladius retracted and Cassius made a faint, disbelieving sound. He fell to his knees, his hands coming up to cover the wound. He stared at the blood that came away from his chest, looking, of all things, confused.

Pullo stepped around Cassius and waved a little. “Hello, sir. Sorry – didn't mean to lurk, as you say. They told me you were out here, but that I should take the long way 'round the house to avoid setting off the dog. Apparently he's been barking a lot?”

“The riots,” said Antony vaguely. “All the noise late at night this past week has upset him.”

Pullo nodded in sympathy. Behind him, Cassius groaned. They both looked at him; his face was quite pale.

“Sorry about that,” said Pullo again, and Antony could not tell who he was addressing. “It's only – Brother Vorenus has made a lot of strides recently, and I'm afraid if he was to return to Rome to find another patron dead in his absence, it'd only set him back again.”

Antony excused him with a brief gesture and then paused, mind reaching. “Oh, his – children, wasn't it? How are the children?”

Pullo's face brightened with a smile. He rocked on his feet a little. “Retrieved, sir, every one of them! And all their limbs and teeth intact, even.”

“Oh, that's, that's very good.” He inclined his head. “Please, pass on my congratulations.”

Cassius was gasping a little. He put out an unsteady, bloody hand as if to push back to his feet, but the arm buckled and he pitched forward. He shuddered twice and was still.

Pullo put his hands on his hips and glanced uneasily between the body and Antony. “Should I, ah – take him away to the front gate, sir?”

“No, no,” said Antony, waving him off. He tucked his toga around his arms and settled back once more. His wounds ached from a tension he no longer needed.

So this was not to be the day he was defeated. The feeling of that was – he didn't know what it was. Relief? A stay of judgment.

“I think I'd like to look at it for a little while,” he said.  
  


* * *

  
“ _Even good Ancus left the light of day behind with his eyes_ ,” quoted Brutus quietly. He looked down at Cassius's body for a long time.

Antony surreptitiously watched his grave profile, and waited for a proper reaction: perhaps for the man to announce he was done, that Antony should leave.

“I'm sorry,” he said, reaching halfheartedly for sincere. “I know you were friends.”

“He never could leave well enough alone,” said Brutus at last. He sighed and folded down upon the edge of Antony's couch. He stared at the body some more. “I don't understand his thinking. Why he would do this. Now, after everything.”

Antony pointed to himself and said, perhaps a little smugly, “Trophy.”

The lines around Brutus's mouth deepened. “Please don't say that.”

“Alright,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Well, he also hated me. There. That's reason enough.”

“If hate were enough to spur men to kill, Rome would be a much bloodier place.”

“One might argue it's bloody enough. Not everyone holds the same,” and here he grunted slightly as he moved from his back to his side, so he was curled around Brutus a little, “ _enlightened_ views you do.”

“But he could not possibly think I would forgive him, if he had been successful.” Brutus finally looked away and blinked down at him. “Are you no longer angry with me, then?”

Antony wondered if it would be too much to lift the other man's hand and place it on his head. He said drowsily, “Oh, you know – my brush with an ignominious death has put things in perspective. You being an idiot is not so important in the larger scheme of things.”

Brutus's hand combed through his hair, and he made a faint pleased sound.

“I have at my disposal the power of a dictator,” said Brutus absently. “I think my being an idiot might be _very_ important, actually.”

“But that's why you have me. If you're an idiot around the wrong people, I'll just kill them. Problem solved.”

He paused. “How _did_ you manage to kill him? You can barely walk without assistance.”

“Mercury,” he said promptly, figuring Brutus would not respond well to a senator being brought down by a halfwit ex-centurion. “The trickster god sent an envoy.”

“There's been a lot of that kind of thing going around,” said Brutus darkly. “All this meddling. It's getting positively Grecian around here as of late.”

He was getting distracted again, which was displeasing to Antony. They were both alive, after all. He would like to enjoy it a bit, for once.

He reached up and caught the other man's wrist, drawing his eye.

“Kiss me, Brutus,” he commanded. “Before the body starts to mottle and ruin the mood.”  
  


* * *

  
At dinner, Servilia surveyed the two men with an implacable coldness. The news of her son-in-law's death had not gone over well, and she rather gave the impression she thought the wrong man had survived the encounter.

Brutus, who had spent much of the afternoon addressing Antony with unsettling tenderness shot through with inexplicable melancholy, was blind to her mood until she made a point of displaying it.

She shifted her plate away and fixed her son with a narrow look. “How do you suppose Tertulla will respond to the news that her husband has perished under the roof of the house she was raised in?”

“It happened outside, actually,” said Antony, and then, seeing the reaction this provoked, quickly revised his evening plans: “Eros, assist me. We are away, I think.”

  
  


After he had quit the room, Brutus said calmly to his mother, “Tertulla is the most sensible of my sisters. Once she understands what has happened within the greater context – namely, that her husband came to the house she was raised in to murder a guest under my protection – I am confident she will adjust her reaction accordingly.”

“Will you throw the Republic for him?” she asked, equally calm. This was how it happened in their house. After being dragged into the wild bouts of shouting and pacing that were involved in arguments in Julia's house, it was almost a relief to square off on familiar ground.

“The Republic?” He gave a short laugh. “I'm tired of having the Republic held against my heart like a knife. If recent months have taught me anything, it's that no one man is responsible for this mess.”

“One might say that kind of talk betrays your ancestors.”

“If Caesar hadn't thrown you over,” he asked, hardly daring his own boldness, “would you have given up a single night with him for the sake of the Republic?” He thought he should have felt ashamed as soon as the words were out, but he was beyond shame now.

She watched him closely for a long time across the triclinium, and under her piercing eyes it was not shame that grew but the old wariness. For she always seemed to know something he did not, and saved the sharing of it for the worst moments.

“I tried to choose happiness once, Marcus,” she said at last. “But it is not meant for us. Do you understand? Happiness is like water and the Junii possess only sieves to carry it. Honor, duty, virtue – these are solid, they can be held. They last.”

After a stricken second, he summoned a smile. It was, he thought, almost funny. “Mother, for once you are too late with your lesson. I have already learned that one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brutus quotes the (mostly lost) Roman poet Ennius. The line appears in Book 3 of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things.


	5. Chapter 5

From his uncle Cato the Younger he learned wisdom.

From the reputation of his father, courage.

From his mother Servilia, self-control.

And from his mentor Caesar, justice.

He owed everything he was as a man to these teachers. The universal nature, that substance out of which all was created, willed him to live a certain way, and they had given him the tools to adapt to this will. It was never easy. He was always aware of the flaws in his character that could lead to missteps or stumbles, a deep well of darkness that had to be continually, deliberately counterbalanced.

He spent his entire life trying to reconcile his inner certainty that the universe was fundamentally rational with the seeming chaos around him; to respond to that chaos with equanimity and dispassion; and accept what came as that which was necessary for the ordered continuation of nature.

Above all, he had long told himself if he lived as a virtuous man, nothing could truly harm him.  
  


* * *

  
“You say you knew Agrippa? How?” said Octavian, looking over the stranger that had come to him late in the night offering protection. Agrippa in fifteen years might have looked like this: the same honest face and oddly sensitive eyes.

“I was present when he died. He – he thought he had betrayed you to your own death, and acted as his honor demanded.”

“Yes, his honor could be inconvenient at times.” Octavian's tone revealed nothing of how he felt on the matter.

“Well, I. I regret the affair. He seemed a good man.”

“But how do I know I can trust you? You admit you are loyal to the consul, the very same who engineered my friend's death.”

“I am,” said Lucilius firmly. “I am loyal to Consul Brutus. I would die for him. But I swear on the Black Stone you can trust me to see you safely from Rome. My honor demands I help you, as it is my fault Agrippa cannot.”

More troublesome honor, Octavian thought. But at least this time he was not the one inconvenienced.  
  


* * *

  
“Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus has fled the city,” said the messenger, standing in the corridor and addressing the unmoving consul framed in his doorway. He took in the wooden expression and hastily cast his eyes down. “And Vestalis Maxima Horatia—”

“Yes?” said Brutus, tone dangerous.

He privately cursed his luck for having been on shift at this hour. “She added that she still expected the... painting of the House of the Vestals to continue on the agreed-upon schedule.”

“I see.”

The messenger waited and did not fidget, for he was a professional.

“Let her read into my silent reply what she will,” said the consul. And then he closed the door, which the messenger took to mean _end of message.  
  
_

* * *

  
Early the next morning, Brutus visited Cicero at his house. He was let into the man's study and the two drank milk and honey while a slave went about stoking the braziers. Slowly but steadily, the room around them warmed. But this warmth could not seem to reach their eyes.

“You have heard—” began Brutus.

“Of Cassius, yes,” said Cicero.

“And Octavian?”

“Yes.”

“You are fast running out of a future to attach your hopes to,” observed Brutus.

Cicero put his head back and mused, “Hope has always been a rare commodity in Rome. I should be surprised if you have much yourself – even with Cassius and Octavian gone, you cannot imagine you and Antony do not still have a surfeit of enemies waiting on the benches. Especially after all that has recently passed.”

Nine months, and the man was finally addressing the consuls as partner bound together; Brutus should have been pleased, but it was coming too late to do much good for any of them.

He said, “I know. I know it's a problem. Which is why I am centralizing imperium.”

Cicero tilted his head as if he had not heard properly. “You are—?”

“I'm nationalizing the Army,” said Brutus simply.

Silence unfurled between them. Cicero was, at long last, speechless. Even the crackling of the braziers had more sound to offer the room than the great senator.

Brutus plucked at his toga where it lay unevenly over his knee. “Come, Cicero, you should like this: no more ambitious generals raising a legion from their tenants, no more private oaths of loyalty. From now on, any soldier in Rome will be a soldier _of_ Rome, and nothing else.”

“I'm not sure you can do that,” he said slowly.

Brutus lightly tugged his ear, considering. “I've had a man look over the collective treasuries and am satisfied I can fund the change for at least the first couple years, after which the country will have become more accustomed to the idea. The better question is, will anyone stop me? And I think we both know the answer to that.”

“The Senate,” began Cicero, sitting forward at last.

“Oh, look around you, man,” said Brutus. “The Senate is falling in on itself. Who is left to truly stand for anything? Cato, Scipio – all gone.” He looked away. “There are no real leaders anymore. Only pandering, self-interested creatures.”

His lips tightened. “The Brutus of last March would cut you down for forsaking it.”

“The Brutus of last March would have pretended to care, and not particularly well,” he said. “But then, people have never wanted to know my true feelings on matters of the state. The assumption in their minds always sufficed.”

“Is that why you are doing this?” he demanded. “Some feeling of petty resentment? Spite?”

“You say that as if you haven't made a career out of the very same.” But then Brutus waved a hand and covered his eyes briefly with the other. “I did not come here to argue or gloat, actually.”

“Why have you come? Surely this isn't some fair-minded divulgence. Will you allow the defense to marshal an adequate response or merely take unilateral action like a tyrant?”

“The defense has already laid its case to rest. I am doing you the favor of an old friend – as someone who respects you, I am telling you to... go live out the rest of your life. Go _write_ , Cicero – though, I beg you, try to find a topic other than my co-consul. You do yourself no favors there.”

He nodded. “I might say as much to you. It is a sad day, seeing a Brutus dragged down by such a creature.”

Brutus's mouth twisted. “Creature, harlot, monster – you have so many epithets for him but they all only serve to draw more attention. I wonder, if had you simply accepted him as a man, all of this might have been avoided.”

Something in his tone clearly caught Cicero's attention; his spine uncurled and rose from the couch, and his feet went to the floor. He looked at the consul and said slowly, “All of _what_ , exactly?”

Brutus looked around the study for a long moment, eyes traveling over the evidence of works in progress, and the small mountain of correspondence on his desk. It would be a lot to move; some, perhaps, would have to be left behind.

He looked back to Cicero.

“Tomorrow you will be declared an Enemy of the State. The Senate will vote on it in the morning – they will consent,” he added, almost gentle, as he saw Cicero open his mouth. “You are not without allies, of course, but the past few months have wearied everyone. They wish all… troublemakers gone from the city.”

The use of the plural did not escape the other man, even as his chest heaved with choking disbelief. He exhaled raggedly and narrowed his eyes. “And – and the consul Antony? Is _he_ to be sent away as well?”

Brutus did not reply, but stood to leave, shaking out his toga. He paused at the door and said, “I suggest you leave as soon as possible. Do not make the mistake of thinking the edict a formality. Tomorrow you will be an Enemy of the State, but you are already an enemy of Antony's – if his brother and sister-in-law find you, they will kill you, and see to it that your head and hands are made trophies.”

Cicero stood as well, staring at him like he'd never seen him before. “You almost sound as if you approve of all this, Brutus,” he said, but his shock made the accusation fall soft between them.

His hand tightened on the door frame and Brutus said, “If I was a private citizen, you'd be dead already.” He hesitated a moment longer and sent him a small, complicated smile. “Travel well, old friend.”  
  


* * *

  
If, as was so widely acknowledged, loving someone involved opening oneself up to all manner of pain, what did this say of love as an act of either creation or destruction? For love was properly considered an _act_ – that is, a continuing action, rather than a state of being; of this he was sure.

He thought by becoming a person who loved, one changed himself. But was it creation or destruction?

Sometimes one changed everything about himself – how he behaved, how he arranged his days, what he cared about. And as these changes mounted, they must at some point accumulate sufficient weight to rightfully be said to have changed the person altogether. For the soul was a corporeal object, and could be fed or starved accordingly.

Thus, two people in love might be said to be in a dialogue. The participants in this dialogue changed one another; they were different men together than when apart, for when apart they were no longer parts to a whole. But no dialogue continued forever. Who was Socrates when he sat silently by himself? Did he become or cease to be?

Creation or destruction?  
  


* * *

  
Antony sat gingerly on the edge of a couch in their bed chambers and sifted through the stack of official papers Brutus had given him. They were both to appear before the Senate in the morning, and he wanted Antony familiar with all details of upcoming plans.

He shook his head in rueful admiration as he read. Meanwhile, Brutus drank wine over behind his desk.

“Cassius dead, Cicero banished, and Octavian on the run – two for three, that's not bad.”

“With the new imperium, it should be harder for Octavian to raise troops,” said Brutus. “Not many soldiers will choose a nineteen-year-old boy on the run over the collective treasuries of Rome, after all. Especially with his most talented military mind dead.”

Antony looked over at him, amused. “Are you lobbying me to revise the score? You want to hear me say it?”

Brutus paused with his wine cup half-raised and gave a stiff shrug. He had been in a peculiar mood all day, which Antony put down to his complicated feelings over Cassius and perhaps even Cicero. For someone who revered Janus, Brutus despised change.

But don't we all love that which most perfectly represents what we ourselves lack, he thought.

“Fine, you win,” he said, striving to pretend the mood was not souring oddly all around him. “Three for three. If I could bend at all without opening my gut, I'd go down on my knees for you right now. King Brutus, who drove all blackguards from Rome—”

“Please,” said Brutus suddenly. “Please, don't say that.”

He would have to get used to the title sometime, but after recent events Antony was willing to go easy on him. After all – _three for three_...

Silence resumed as Antony continued shifting through the papers. Brutus seemed to have given up even on the wine, and was staring sightlessly at his desk. He did a lot of staring still, and Antony wondered if the seeds of the strychnine tree were to have long term effects.

He finished his desultory perusal of a temple treasury account and flipped it off to the side. Underneath was a map – a familiar map. He paused, something shifting over in his chest. “Parthia?” He looked over to where Brutus sat with a hand shielding his eyes. “ _Parthia._ ”

“Yes,” said Brutus, almost soundless.

He had not had to include anything but the map for Antony to understand his meaning. “Are you mocking me or is this real?” he demanded.

“Well, there were so many plans already in place,” he said, voice so hollow it practically rattled. “It seems a pity to let them go to waste.”

Antony pushed up from the couch, biting back a grimace with enough effort to make his jaw ache. He slowly approached the desk. “You're sending me away?”

“I'm setting you free,” Brutus corrected. His eyes flew up to him and away again, throat working. “You hate it here, Antony. And it's dangerous for you, as you and – so – many – people have taken care to remind me recently.”

“You don't want me to go,” he said, only realizing it as he spoke.

Brutus's forehead landed atop his desk. His next words were muffled, spoken as they were directly into the wood. “That you can be even a little surprised by this only heightens my awareness of my failures as a lover and a man.”

Gods, the man could be so dramatic. Antony rested his hip against the desk and looked down at his miserable hunched shoulders. “Brutus, I have a hole in my side, so I cannot drag you up forcefully from the chair.”

“Yes, thank you, I am painfully aware of this,” retorted the consul who would be his king.

He sighed. “So you will get your way for this night and have to obey _my_ commands. Go – lie on the bed, would you.”

Brutus raised his head and blinked up at him with thankfully dry eyes. He looked at the bed and then back to Antony, and his expression took on a familiar contortion of disbelief.

“Oh, just fucking do it,” said Antony, before the man could protest about such tedious things like wounds and stitches and the healing nature of chastity.

Leaving his toga in a crumpled pile at the base of his chair, Brutus slowly rose and crossed over to the bed. He sat down heavily and watched as Antony approached. He looked tight and drawn, his hands balled into fists upon his thighs.

“I'm not really in the mood for—”

Antony said, “Shut up and lie down, will you. And move over, I'm not clambering over you.”

They stretched out beside one another. Antony let out a silent, careful breath as the tension around his stitches finally eased off.

They both looked up at the ceiling.

Antony allowed himself to think of it, just the once: Parthia. Crassus could not do it, and Caesar had not the chance to try. But oh, to beat them back behind the frontiers of Media and Mesopotamia – to go further, and conquer where Alexander had conquered. The continent would shake with the fall of that empire. Caesar's assassination would become a mere footnote in the history of Marcus Antonius, and everything before _that_ would fade even further. Historians would shape his biography to appeal and ingratiate, and his life as he had lived it could finally disappear entirely. Antony could be rewritten.

“I do not think I will be going to Parthia,” he said, watching the drape of bed curtain come back into view, the fabric falling like a veil over the images of Parthia. He blinked at it.

“You would ignore my orders,” said Brutus, “after months of maneuvering me into place to give them? Could you possibly be so contrary?”

Antony clicked his tongue. “You keep affecting this tedious show of surprise. As if, after all these years, you look at me and expect to see a good man.”

“A good man, no,” said Brutus in his ear, and Antony blinked and angled a look at him. Brutus's warm amber eyes flicked over his face. “A man such as you could never measured by so paltry a stick as good or not good.”

“Oh?”

“Good is what they call someone who is – unobjectionable. A man who is unobjectionable to everyone is an unremarkable man. It's what they say when they need to say something, and it's impossible to say dull.”

“Brutus, many call _you_ a good man.”

“Well, I wish they wouldn't. Aside from what I have just said, it's not even true.”

Antony's lips drew back from his teeth in a sudden sneer. “Oh, Juno's cunt, not this again—”

“No,” said Brutus in sharp frustration. He levered himself up on his elbow and looked down at him, remembering only at the last second not to put pressure on his torso. “This isn't – it's not that. What you think. This isn't me foisting my insecurities on you. What I mean is, I want to be a good man, Antony. Many a day it's all I've wanted – except,” he said, halting, “except that's not true, because—” He broke off again, and Antony said, frustrated:

“I have no idea what you're trying to say right now.”

“I am _saying_ , I want to be noble, to do what is right, and moral.”

“The usual, then—”

“But I also want to let this city burn itself down to cold ash and scatter in the wind, so it may never trouble either of us another day of our lives.”

Antony said nothing.

“So – no, I'm not a good man, Antony. But I have tried to be a virtuous one.”

“...I don't believe anyone would bestow that descriptor on me either.” His voice was a little hoarse.

“No,” agreed Brutus, but he was smiling a little.

“Alright, we have established neither of us are good men. But you, at least, are virtuous,” said Antony, humor fading from his voice without his permission. “What am I?”

Part of him wanted to know why he was asking such a question: a question he had always previously been determined to be the only one to answer. But he knew why when Brutus laid a hand along his face and looked into his eyes. Antony could feel the writing callus of his middle finger resting on the point of his cheekbone.

“Something much more dangerous,” said Brutus. “A conqueror.”

They looked at one another. The moment Antony at last accepted the other man's decision was communicated entirely without words, for they most thoroughly understood one another when not trying to speak.

A strange mixture of grief and joy tormented his vocal cords as he said, “You sound as if you are already planning my Triumph over Parthia.”

Brutus's eyes were very bright. He looked furiously satisfied, but then he'd always been the self-denying type. Denying himself Antony might have been the Parthia in his own life.

“Why should Parthia give you any trouble?” He bent down and murmured the words into Antony's mouth. “After all, you have conquered me.”  
  


* * *

  
The new year arrived as if laboriously hauled up on a pulley, but once it was locked in place, Rome set back to business with swift speed. For the Republic was a living machine that sustained itself off such periodic sacrifice. Some players fell; some scattered; some lay waiting. And life continued as normal for all the rest.

On the Aventine, the family of Lucius Vorenus settled into a semblance of wholesome peace, and although the children's eyes still held the shadow of wariness when they sat around the dinner table with their father, Vorenus and his good friend Pullo were blind to everything but the smiles.

Pontifex Maximus Lepidus was caught between the vestalis maxima and the consul of Rome in a fraught power struggle over building maintenance, and frantically pretended to not be home whenever someone came calling all through the month of Janus.

In the solitude of her home, Julia silently bid farewell again to her sons; after a while, if one were to listen at a window, one would hear the clicking turn of her spindle, and gradually the low sound of her singing.

In Tyndaris on the northern coast of Sicily, Quintus Pompey held a feast for fifteen pirate leaders, hoping to persuade them to join his cause.

In Puteoli, Cicero sat penning a stack of letters as his secretary Tiro directed other slaves to pack up the household. They had forgotten how involved a process going on the run could be – and it was about to get more complicated, for a disguised Octavian was swiftly making his way down the Italian peninsula to avail himself of Cicero's hospitality and patronage.

Outside Rome, Antony rode out on the Flaminian Way, flanked by his brother and sister-in-law. He was far from fully healed and would spend much of the overland journey inside a carriage, but he insisted of leaving the city on horseback. He looked back only once, following the long glittering tail of his legions as a line tracing back to the city. The host arrayed in armor was a beautiful thing, to be sure, but he thought he had to agree with the poet. _Whatever one loves_ , she had written; and there was indeed a face he would rather see.

In the Curia, Brutus sat alone before the Senate.


End file.
